


Aphelion

by marlowe_tops



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Study in Emerald, Dubious Consent, Fuck Or Die, Gregory Lestrade is my literary whipping-boy, Lindisfarne, Lovecraftian, M/M, Mating, Norse Mythology references, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex Toys, Tentacles, Whipping, casefic, courting, everyone's heart gets put through the wringer, fictional anatomy, non-human anatomy, summoning elder gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:31:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlowe_tops/pseuds/marlowe_tops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the world of Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald". Lovecraftian romance in which John finds out that some of Sherlock's strange behavior was actually intended as courting rituals, and that his acceptance of the behavior was taken as consent. Meanwhile, bored prince Sebastian's choice of a new mate ends up being far messier than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is very much inspired by Neil Gaiman's short [A Study in Emerald](http://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf), as a mash-up with the BBC Sherlock and the johnlock and mormor pairings we all know and love. 
> 
> Initially just the unfinished chapter one, due to much popular request it was continued as this 30k multi-part multi-pairing tentacle-porn epic.
> 
> Cover, Fan and Accompanying Artwork:  
> http://marlowe-tops.tumblr.com/post/36182820754/look-at-this-lucienne-caused-to-be-made-a-pretty  
> http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t382/Eldritchhorrors/albionsherlock.jpg   
> http://goingbadly.tumblr.com/post/63490559975/finally-done-well-mostly-i-just-shaded-and  
> http://marlowe-tops.tumblr.com/post/28016461802/my-own-artwork-of-aphelion-sherlock

“John. Drink this.”

“What?” Startled out of the case he was writing mid-sentence, John looked up at the blue-green vial Sherlock was holding inches away from his face. It bubbled slowly, in a horribly unappetizing manner. “Drink... what is that? No.”

Undeterred, the vial stayed in front of his face. Sherlock’s expression was determined. “It’s for aphelion.”

“Aphelion? That case you’re working on?” John took the vial from him, mostly so that Sherlock would stop holding it in his face. He gave it a sniff, grimaced, and held the horrible concoction at arm’s length. “No. Definitely not. No.”

John hadn’t heard the word aphelion since primary school, until Sherlock had started batting it around two weeks ago. It was some bizarre, obscure case that Sherlock was working on. He had yet to successfully sit Sherlock down and extract an explanation from him, but from what he had gathered, there was some kind of cult activity focused around the Earth’s aphelion--the point in its orbit where it would be farthest away from the sun, which coincidentally happened in the middle of summer. John surmised that Sherlock was trying to prevent some kind of crime from taking place on the night in question, but the requests he had made of John in the interests of this were exceptionally peculiar.

“It is essential,” Sherlock insisted, watching him with exacting focus as he waited for John to comply.

“Essential for what, exactly? What is this? Sherlock, it’s nauseating.” He would suspect this was a murder attempt from his flatmate, if Sherlock wasn’t so maddeningly attached to him. He felt more like Sherlock’s teddy bear than his best friend, most of the time. He was constantly being dragged across London, only to be unceremoniously abandoned the moment Sherlock forgot about him, and later scolded for not being around when Sherlock was looking for him.

“Your safety,” Sherlock insisted. “Drink.”

“My safety? This does not make me feel very safe, Sherlock, and you still haven’t told me what this is.”

Frustrated, Sherlock’s brow furrowed into a sulk. “I will put it in your food.”

“It smells horrible, Sherlock. I think I’d notice.”

“John.”

“No.”

“Why are you being willfully obtuse? This is for aphelion. I need you to trust me.” Sherlock reached for the vial, but John held it out of the way, peering suspiciously up at him.

“Trust you.”

“Trust me. Drink it.”

“Is this some kind of experiment? Because it looks like--”

“ _John_. This is not an experiment. I know exactly what it does, and I am telling you that it will keep you safe. This is important, and I do not want to take any risks. Drink it.”

John sighed, regarding the horrible mixture with resignation. “Sherlock, if this makes all my teeth fall out--”

“It won’t.”

Grimacing, John knocked the vial back and drank.

It tasted worse than it smelled, wriggling its way down his throat like it was sentient, and the acidic coating it left on his tongue made him feel like his tongue was growing hair. Choking, John clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from retching, and bolted for the kitchen to chug down milk. Sherlock followed, observing him closely.

“Happy?” John demanded. His stomach was doing flips, and he felt _sick_. This was supposed to keep him _safe_ in some weird way?

“Yes.”

Sherlock kept watching him intently for several minutes, until John had brushed his teeth twice, drunk half the gallon of milk, and finally stopped gagging and convulsing.

“Not okay, Sherlock,” John snapped, displeased about being railroaded into drinking what Sherlock _still_ wouldn’t identify for him.

Sherlock just ignored that, and when John had settled back in his chair, attention returned to the blog and the agonizing experience mostly over, Sherlock gave up watching him and wandered away.

\--

“He’s acting really weird.”

Nursing a pint of beer and still trying to get the taste of blue-green slime out of his mouth hours later, John frowned across the table at Greg. He couldn’t talk to anyone else about this. Greg was the only one who shared John’s oft-strained tolerance for Sherlock. With everyone else, it was either the accepting “oh that’s just Sherlock, he doesn’t mean anything by it” from Mrs. Hudson and Molly, or the “why do you put up with him?” from most of the rest of the population of London. Only Greg had the same wry, long-suffering patience, and it was a relief for both of them to be able to complain at length to each other about the latest horrors Sherlock had inflicted upon them.

“He always acts really weird.”

“Weird for _Sherlock_ ,” John insisted. “Today he made me drink some kind of nauseating slime. Said it was for aphelion.”

Lestrade’s head lifted, suddenly all attention. “Aphelion?”

“Some case he’s been working on for two weeks. Really unusual, and I can’t get any details out of him. Any other case he would have solved it by now, but this one it’s on and off. Nothing for three days, and then out of nowhere he’ll mention something about it. I’m on strict instructions to clear my calendar, and he has even rented a car in advance, but no word as to where we’re going. And even when it’s not about the case, he’s just been... strange.”

Greg leaned back in his chair, thinking that over. “Bad strange?”

“He gave me a bottle of aftershave.”

“Aftershave?”

“It smells like a swamp. I think it must be the same brand he uses, it smells faintly like him. Not that I understand why anyone would want to smell like a swamp. And the brand, it’s not one I’ve ever heard of. I looked it up on the internet--nothing.”

Greg shrugged in a manner that John interpreted as _the ways of Sherlock are inexplicable to anyone other than Sherlock_. “Maybe he took offense at your regular aftershave?”

“I thought of that, but I haven’t changed it recently, and this is Sherlock. If he had a problem with it, he would have tried to replace it long before now.”

“Aphelion.” Greg scratched at his five o’clock shadow. “That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“The point in Earth’s orbit where it’s farthest from the sun? No. No, it doesn’t, and Sherlock distracts either me or himself every time I try to dig for information. I’d be suspicious, but I don’t have the first idea what to suspect, and twice he’s told me to stop being obtuse, as if I’ve missed something terribly obvious and he thinks I’m being intentionally dense about it.” Confused and exhausted by dealing with the mystery of Sherlock’s behavior--which was almost always a mystery, but not usually so organized and at such a length of time--John slumped in his chair. He did trust Sherlock, but his recent antics had been inexplicable and jarring. His stomach still clenched irritably about the earlier indignity. “Why? Does it mean something to you?”

Greg settled his elbows on the table, hands curled around his pint glass as he stared down into it as though it contained all the answers. With great reluctance, he lifted his head to frown at John. “How much do you know about the rituals of the royal families?”

The royal families? Benevolent and terrible, their ways incomprehensible to their human subjects, the royal families were the rulers and defenders of humanity. From them had come all the good things in life, that had brought humanity out of their former pagan barbarism, and into the current era of peace and prosperity that had endured for almost a millenium. And yet they had always been very secretive about their private lives. Such is the way of royalty. “Almost nothing.”

“I have heard,” Greg ventured, “that the dates of perihelion and aphelion are very important to those of royal blood.”

“So the case has to do with royalty?” John’s eyebrows shot up. “No wonder he’s being so secretive.”

“John.” Greg frowned, like he had some additional information that he wasn’t at liberty to divulge. That made sense. This whole case might be above his clearance level, which would explain why Sherlock refused to tell him anything. After a pause, he shook his head. “Take care of yourself.”

All the same, that sent a chill through John’s heart. “Something I should be concerned about?”

“How much do you trust Sherlock?”

“Completely. Why do I keep getting asked that today?”

Greg pushed his pint away and stood up. “Because you might be called upon to prove just how much you’ll put up with, for his sake.”

“Greg.”

“Take care of yourself,” Greg repeated, tossing money on the table and heading for the door in a way that looked like a hasty retreat.

“ _Greg._ ”

But Greg just tossed a wave over his shoulder and left.

\--

John looked up “aphelion + royalty” on the internet, and found nothing but articles on the mating habits of different strains of the Old Ones. All of what he found was wild speculation, and most of it was either vague blanket statements about royalty as a whole, or unhelpfully specific. Only one article actually addressed English royalty in any kind of helpful degree, and even that was confusing and unsettling.

_… the children of the Queen of Albion take their mates on the night of Aphelion … courting-rituals of the offspring are complicated and subtle, lasting for months at a time, but always initiated by cohabitation. The offspring never directly discuss the topic of mating during courtship, but their courting habits are so specific that they cannot be mistaken for anything else. Traditional courting gifts include severed human heads and hands..._

Rattled by the research, John shut his laptop and set it aside. So Sherlock was working on a case regarding aphelion, probably having something to do with royalty. No wonder some of his requests seemed … peculiar.

There were many things in the world that John didn’t understand, and things he had seen during his tour in Afghanistan that lingered in his nightmares to this day. Great, formless shapes with too many mouths and endless tangling limbs, creatures that strained his very powers of understanding. He knew that there were things lurking in between the shadows. Some of them were benevolent, like the great and merciful royal families, and others were feral demons that saw humans as prey.

It had been an encounter with one of these that had ended John’s tour of duty. All he remembered were the slick, dark limbs reaching for him, and then nothing until he’d woken screaming in the hospital. A whole chunk of his memory, not gone, but coiled so deeply in a horror he couldn’t face that it made him sick and dizzy to try to think of it. They told him he’d been screaming for a week, until his throat was hoarse and they sedated him. For a month they’d been worried his mind would not return.

At last, when he could function outwardly like a sane, stable human, they sent him home, with a recommendation for a therapist. Still, it wasn’t until he had met Sherlock that he felt like he could face the world again.

If the blue-green slime that had been forced down his throat was some kind of a defense against the facets of this world that defied human comprehension, then John was willing to endure a little intestinal distress. Perhaps the odd aroma of the aftershave made him harder for malevolent creatures to detect, or perhaps it made his human scent more tolerable to the royalty themselves.

It was a crazy theory, but John could only suppose that Sherlock was trying to prevent a crime being plotted against a member of the royal family. That explained the secrecy.

_How much do you trust Sherlock?_

_Completely._

\--

“John! Get your coat. We’re going.”

“Going?” Startled out of his reading, John stumbled to his feet and fetched his coat. “Going where?”

“It’s aphelion tonight, where do you think?” Sherlock replied testily. He snatched his scarf and herded John out the door, down to the waiting car. “We need to hurry.”

“Right. Okay.” Shaking his head and just accepting it, John slid in the driver’s side and started the car. Sherlock certainly had no idea how to drive. He considered it superfluous information.

The warm crimson of the moon was particularly vivid tonight, washing the countryside in a breathtaking shade of ruby black as they drove out of London. Sherlock was restless but silent, hand tapping impatiently against his thigh.

“Can you tell me anything about what’s going on?” John asked. He understood security clearance, but he also didn’t want to be going into this situation blind.

He could see Sherlock sit up out of the corner of his eye. “Of course,” he said, as though only just realizing something. “You haven’t done this before.”

“This?”

“Aphelion. The ritual.”

“ _What_ ritual?”

Sherlock scoffed. “There’s only one. Don’t worry. You have nothing to fear.”

“Okay,” John agreed, still annoyed that he wasn’t getting any details about this. “Shouldn’t you tell me some part of the plan? So that I know what to … do, I mean.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Sherlock said, and his voice was gentler this time, almost soothing--if Sherlock could be soothing. “You just have to trust me.”

“I do,” John said. “Trust you, I mean. I just... never mind. I trust you. Fine. It’s all fine.”

Sherlock stayed silent, except for giving directions, so John gave up and left him to his thoughts. He was Sherlock. Who knew what went through that maddening, incredible brain?

Their path took them from the motorway onto local highways, and from there to winding country lanes, and finally an abandoned, overgrown track where they had to leave the car and walk.

“Well, this is atmospheric,” John commented, trying to lighten the situation. He had gotten over his terror of the dark, especially as long as the warm rosy light of the moon was glowing above and with Sherlock at his side, but he had no fondness for being away from the safe, familiar, brightly lit streets of London.

“My ancestral home,” Sherlock explained. It was the first time he had actually _offered_ information in this weird case. “It was destroyed two hundred years ago, when the bedrock fractured during a ritual. Not, I don’t believe, a ritual of aphelion. The other family lines have moved on to other things, greater sites of power. No one has much interest in this old place, but it will serve my purposes.”

“Those purposes being...?”

“Come along, John. Quickly.”

Frustrated as ever by the lack of further information, John trudged along after him. His ancestral home? What in the world did his ancestral home have to do with anything? The case they were investigating had some connection to Sherlock’s family? But what did that mean, that some branch of the family was of royal blood?

By marriage, surely. Sherlock was human enough. Ethereally beautiful and more than a little odd, yes, but John had seen him in plenty of states of undress. Sherlock was eternally stubborn against John’s imposed rules of wearing pants outside of his own bedroom, so John had gotten an eyeful on more than one occasion. Everything that was there was human. There were none of the extra limbs and peculiar placement of eyeballs that were indicative of royalty.

The castle itself was a gorgeous gothic fortress of a place, left to its own crumbling devices. The roof was gone in most places, and a sharp rift down the center of the structure verified Sherlock’s story about the fractured foundation.

But what kind of ritual could fracture bedrock?

Sherlock hadn’t bothered with a torch while they were out in the moonlight, but he handed one over to John once they ducked under the crumbling arch of a doorway and entered the dark depths of the castle. Sherlock himself took the lead, strangely unconcerned about the darkness, and that was the first thing that put a note of real doubt in John’s mind. Sherlock had good night vision, okay, but it shouldn’t be this good.

“Are you sure this is safe?” John asked, flashing the light up at the soaring stone walls, any one of which could topple over and crush them without warning.

“Quite safe,” Sherlock said.

“If you tell me to trust you again I am going to punch you,” John warned him. Sherlock paused and looked back, and when John shone the light on him he saw a momentary grin. He couldn’t help but return Sherlock’s grins. They were always infectious, and were eternally leading to the two of them giggling at crime scenes. That grin was why he trusted Sherlock. His Sherlock. His best friend.

Who was currently leading him down a precarious set of stairs into a subterranean vault.

_I trust Sherlock, I do. This is all fine._

Deep beneath the old castle was a cavern, the ceilings of which were gorgeously vaulted with carven stone. Gods and gargoyles stood in recessed alcoves around the room, among them a stone image of the Queen of Albion herself, with some of her consorts.

“What is this place?” John breathed. It was beautiful, in a dark and terrifying way. The fracture in the stone ran the length of the hall, and straight through an altar at the center, but the hall had stood for hundreds of years without crumbling. It could stand for one night more.

“It is a place of power.” Sherlock whipped off his coat, laying it across the altar and smoothing the fabric over the stone. “Broken, with only remnants of power remaining, but that’s more than enough for our purposes.”

“And what are our purposes, exactly?”

“Saving my life,” Sherlock removed his scarf and set it aside, and then started on the buttons of his shirt. “I tried to forgo this last year, on aphelion, and it almost killed me. I don’t think I can survive another year. That’s why I was so grateful when I found you and you agreed.”

“Agreed to _what_?”

Sherlock looked puzzled, but he never stopped unbuttoning. “To this. We don’t have much time, John. I’m going to need you to remove your clothing.”

“What? Sherlock.” John’s nostrils flared as he clamped his mouth shut and stopped himself from arguing further. He had said that he trusted Sherlock, and if Sherlock said his life was on the line, he wasn’t joking. He wouldn’t joke about that. “Fine.”

Still annoyed about not being told anything, John shed coat and then jumper, piling them neatly on the floor and setting the torch atop them so that it lit the altar before attacking the buttons of his own shirt.

By the time he had his shirt off and looked back, Sherlock was already naked. They were very much alone, not laying a trap or making plans to save anyone, and John was beginning to have serious doubts about his assumption that aphelion referred to a case.

“I’m going to remove my glamour now,” Sherlock said, watching John closely for his consent.

John went very still, voice tight. _Glamour_ , in John’s understanding, when it didn’t refer to women’s fashion magazines or vintage hollywood, was an old fairy tale word for enchantment. Sherlock did not have enchantments. Sherlock was a normal, safe human, and he always had been. John was his best friend. He would have noticed. “What do you mean your _glamour_?”

“I mean show to you my true form.”

“What do you mean _your true form_?” John echoed, feeling his voice go unusually high. “You don’t have a _true form_ , you’re human, you’re my flatmate, you’re my best friend.”

“John,” Sherlock said, expression melting into flat horror as he realized for the first time that when he said _aphelion_ , John honestly had no idea what he was talking about.

John shook his head, staring openly at him. “No. Sherlock.”

“You _consented_ ,” Sherlock insisted, but it sounded desperate. “I courted you and you _consented_.”

What did he mean, consented? Consented to what? All of Sherlock’s strange behavior, from the very start, he had just taken it in stride. Severed heads in the fridge...

_… traditional courting gifts include severed human heads and hands..._

No, that was just an experiment. It was for one of Sherlock’s cases. But that damned article he’d read wouldn’t stop spinning through his head. Sherlock had been courting him, and he’d just assumed the man was eccentric. He said “yes, right, okay” to Sherlock all the time. One of those times had been consent. “Sherlock...”

“It’s too late,” Sherlock decided, and dropped the glamour.

He was still Sherlock. Same sharp cheekbones, same tall, too-thin frame. But his normally blue eyes _glowed_ with green fire, and his pale, translucent skin was shot through with threads of black that formed arcane patterns beneath the skin. Even that might have been fine, even that might still have been _Sherlock_ , but for the six slick black tentacles that roiled around his slim form.

“ _No_ ,” John said, and bolted.

He was a fast runner, but Sherlock was faster. Limbs wrapped around him before he was halfway to the stairs. Two arms around his waist, and four of the slick, dark tentacles...

_Oh, no. No._

“We don’t have time to discuss this,” Sherlock said, steering him inexorably toward the altar.

“Sherlock,” John begged, fighting with the tentacles that wrapped around his arms and legs. “Whatever you think I consented to, whatever this is, I _can’t_. I _cannot_ deal with this, Sherlock. No.”

“I’m sorry, John,” Sherlock said. He pushed him down onto his back on the altar, looking down at him for a moment with regret before he leaned down and kissed him.

It was soft and sweet, but brief.

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John pleaded, one more time.

“No.”

One of the tentacles whipped up, pushing through John’s parted lips and straight down his throat, preventing any further conversation. It went _deep_ , filling his throat and reaching halfway to his belly. He choked, straining for air and receiving none.

Above him, Sherlock _groaned_ , a rich, erotic sound that John had never heard from him before. But after a second, the thing retreated, pulling up to fill John’s mouth and letting him breathe. It tasted like Sherlock--milk and tobacco, a sharpness like antiseptic and that almost-sweet, swampy odor from the aftershave.

 _Musk_. That was the word on the bottle. It was the natural musk of whatever the hell Sherlock was. And he had wanted John to wear it as one of the signals in his strange courtship. Which of course--stupidly, wanting to please and thinking it was just another bizarre quirk of Sherlock Holmes--he had.

Sherlock’s hands were fumbling with his belt, another of his tentacles snaking down inside his boxers and curling around the length of his cock. He only used four of the six to actually touch John--the last two, nearest his head, were shorter than the others, curling around his collar bones like a living mantle. But the rest of them were plenty busy, between restraining John’s wrists and violating his mouth. All of them were slick and wet at the tip, leaking dark musk that they left on John’s skin in streaks.

And that musk _tingled_ everywhere it touched.

As soon as John had caught his breath, the tentacle slid back down his throat, staying there for two seconds and then retreating to let him breathe. John couldn’t decide whether to think of it as one of Sherlock’s limbs or as an alien thing with a mind of its own, until Sherlock looked up and met his eyes. There was a very deliberate intent there, as he established a rhythm and waited for John to figure out how to breathe around it, and the expression of ecstasy on Sherlock’s face every time it pushed inside said that whatever this thing was down John’s throat, Sherlock thought it felt _incredible._

The taste of it was somehow intoxicating, like a spiced liquor that sent pleasant shivers down every one of his neurons it encountered, and the longer he was exposed to it the more irresistible it became. The threads of it that had been left on his cock had him erect and aching.

Roughly stripping off John’s trousers, only just careful enough not to rip the material, Sherlock’s tentacles tangled around his thighs, pulling them open and exposing him. John moaned around the thing in his mouth, arousal and objection combined, but Sherlock disregarded that. Replacing the restraint on his wrists with hands, Sherlock freed the fourth tentacle to slither down between his legs, nudging bluntly against his ass.

John arched his back and whimpered in an attempt to object, but Sherlock was having none of that. _Too late,_ he had said. _We don’t have time._ Aphelion was at four a.m., and whatever that meant for Sherlock, it was only minutes away.

“I need you,” Sherlock whispered against the muscles of John’s chest. He kissed his way down his belly, keeping his grip tight on John’s wrists. “It has to be you.”

His mouth sank down around John’s dick at the same time as the tentacle between his legs pushed inside. It was hot and wet inside him, coating him with the slippery musk. It slid deeper and deeper inside him, filling him up and growing steadily wider, until John whimpered in pain, and it retreated only to begin again, slowly forcing more and thicker parts of itself inside.

Sherlock’s penis had grown considerably as it hardened. John could only catch glimpses of it from this angle, but he understood exactly what the thing inside of him was doing: preparing him for _that._

The first tentacle pulled out, taking the place of one of the ones around his thighs as that second, larger tentacle started probing into him. Oozing musk, it left him slick and wet, moaning repeatedly as the aphrodisiac properties of liquid reached more and more areas of his body.

When it abandoned him, John whimpered, intensely _wanting_. His hips strained upward, needing to be filled again.

Sherlock’s mouth was generous and oh-so-clever as it enveloped him, all sweet hot heat and flickering tongue. He was so damn good at giving head, which was no surprise at all. Sherlock was good at anything he put his mind to, and it seemed he was truly invested in putting his mind to this.

But his mouth pulled away mere seconds after his tentacle had pulled out, and he shifted, settling himself between John’s legs.

The tentacle in John’s throat pulled out as well, giving him use of his mouth again.

“I need you to consent,” Sherlock said, and there was absolutely a note of desperation in the statement.

Flushed and panting, John met his eyes. They glowed demonically, but he still recognized them. Sherlock’s eyes.

_How much do you trust Sherlock?_

_Saving my life._

“I consent.”

Sherlock didn’t hesitate. He thrust inside, hard. John’s muscles stretched and strained, hurting, but John clamped down on any objection. For Sherlock, he would do this. For Sherlock, he would do anything.

The tentacles writhed around him, holding his legs wide as Sherlock pushed in to the hilt, taking him roughly. Completely undone by the pheromones in the musk and the effect of Sherlock’s preparation, John lifted his hips to meet each thrust, eager and willing for what he’d been fervently resisting just minutes before.

“John,” Sherlock whispered against his ear, voice broken and desperate with need. “Mine. _John_.”

Pleasure washed over him in waves, far more intense than any orgasm in his life before, blotting out everything but Sherlock above and around him, and it went on _forever_. He recognized--barely--that Sherlock was coming because he felt the flood of seed inside him, far more than any human could produce.

When he came to his senses, Sherlock had pulled out, and was hovering over John with an expression of deep concern. “It’s done,” he said, when John met his eyes and managed to hold there for more than a second. “We’re mated.”

“Mated?” John echoed, physically and emotionally exhausted and very confused.

“I’ll take you home,” Sherlock promised, gathering him up into his arms. All... six of them.

“Sherlock,” John groaned, but his eyes rolled up and the world went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to popular request and the invaluable assistance of secrets_secrets (who can be credited with about a third of my plot), my one-shot is now intended to be a multi-pairing epic. The next few chapters are going to be mormor, but I promise that I'll come back to John and Sherlock. You can expect a fair amount of jumping around in the story's timeline, but I do have plot planned out for you lot. And porn. Lots of porn.

_Hungry._

_Bored._

He was always bored. Poor little rich kid.

There were things to do, of course. Books to read— _dull_ —foreign travel to take— _dreary_ —whining, useless human bodies to fuck— _tedious_. And there was always hunting.

Sebastian loved hunting. It was the one thing in the world at which he could be bothered to make an effort. For that, he would keep his body in pristine physical condition. Just him and his prey, testing their deaths against each other. Big game was fun—they were powerful and deadly, and Sebastian picked bears and tigers twice his size, and then went in armed with nothing but a knife. Humans were interesting—put them in the right situation and they could get delightfully creative. And sometimes, on very rare occasions, he would fight his own kind. They were a challenge, but there were risks inherent in that. Legality made his own kind most difficult to acquire. And even for royalty, making other royals disappear was frowned upon, to say the least.

So most days Sebastian took to the streets of London, and did a little impromptu hunting of his own. It was more fun that way. 

Family money and family connections could get you any number of pet tigers, but out on the streets there was such a delicious risk of being recognized or caught. He was hardly a-list royalty, being the youngest son of the Irish royal family and a known wastrel. Ireland kept its royal family only as an extension of the Queen’s blood, and most of them were offspring, like Sebastian, rather than the true royalty of the Great Old Ones. There was royalty aplenty in the world, and Sebastian was just worthless enough to be ignored by family and tabloids alike.

He caught a pretty little slut and her friend on their way to a club. Snapped the neck of one and went to fuck the other, but she put up such a determined fight that Sebastian lost control and strangled her. 

It was a frustrating, useless ending to a boring, empty evening. But there were plenty of hours left before Sebastian would be expected back at the palace and forced to perform any manner of duties. He wouldn’t be needed until tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest.

Disposing of the bodies in the Thames, where the deep sleepers beneath the water were always happy to make an inconvenient corpse disappear, Sebastian didn’t have the energy to start again. 

_Bored. Frustrated. Bored._

He kept a flat in Soho. It was an anonymous little thing, just comfortable and ordinary enough to be overlooked. He preferred it that way. Easier to get into trouble, when no one was looking, and it was nice to have a quiet refuge that he could call his own. 

Pushing the button for the eighth floor, Sebastian stared dully through the ornate brass bars of the elevator cage. His limbs felt numb from where they were tucked inside his clothing, wrapped around himself to keep them out of the way. Taking glamours off only took a moment, but putting them back on was a headache. Much safer to wear the sort of heavy coats that would keep your limbs hidden in a pinch. Hard to stay under the radar if people noticed you were of royal blood.

The elevator stopped on the seventh floor and stayed there. 

Puzzled, Sebastian reached out and pushed the number eight again. It stayed lit for a moment, and then went off. The elevator didn’t move.

Finicky old thing. Grumbling, Sebastian opened the cage door and stepped through. One floor wasn’t so bad to walk up, cranky though he was.

“Sebastian? Is that you?” 

A small, dark head of mussed hair peeked through the nearest door. Richard Brook, the annoying little brat in the suite below Sebastian’s, who seemed to have a crush on him, and was constantly coming up with reasons to _annoy_ him. He didn’t think the brat had any idea who he was, but it made him no less irritating. Richard wouldn’t be so bad if he would just shut up, and Sebastian couldn’t shake the urge to gag him on sight.

“Do you have a minute? I have this jar I need opened, it’d mean ever so much if you’d just—here, come in, won’t you? I’ll get it.”

Tense and frustrated, Sebastian just scowled at him. Stupid, mundane little bitch never seemed to get the hint. But Richard had already disappeared back into his flat, and Sebastian found himself following. What else was he going to do? Go upstairs and stare at the wall? Wank alone in the dark?

It was such an empty, sad little flat, full of teapots with pictures of cats on and framed photographs of Richard hugging a variety of elderly people. All of the furniture was antique, in a much-scuffed limbo between second-hand and vintage, and it was fastidiously clean. He was such a tiny, useless man in a sad little life, with a crush on his handsome and dangerous upstairs neighbor. Pitiful.

“Here,” Richard said, holding up a jar of olives with an apologetic slouch. 

Sebastian wrenched it open and slammed it down on the nearest counter, sloshing brine across the countertop. 

“Strip,” he ordered.

“E-excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Sebastian grabbed him by the shirt front, propelling him out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. “This is what you want, isn’t it? You’ve been mooning after me for weeks. Do you have any idea what I am?”

“You’re offspring, aren’t you?”

The fact that he knew stopped Sebastian short. He was always careful with his glamours, except when he was fucking. How could Richard have seen? “What?”

“I’ve seen ones like you before. You always wear big coats, even when it’s warm out. You look at people like they’re prey. And when you lean back against the elevator wall, you roll your shoulders back to protect your spine.”

Stunned and honestly impressed by the observation, Sebastian’s head tilted. No one had ever spotted his nature through his glamours before. “So, what is this? You’ve got a thing for offspring, is that it?”

Richard licked his lips, staring at Sebastian’s broad chest. “I’ve got a thing for you.”

“You stupid whore.” Sebastian tore the shirt off him, throwing it across the room and pinning him back against the nearest wall. “Have you ever been with royalty before? You have to prepare for weeks if you want to enjoy it.”

Richard said nothing, but his cheeks were flushed with want. Idiot. He really didn’t get it. Too bad for him Sebastian didn’t care.

“I said strip,” Sebastian ordered, letting go of him. He shed his own clothing quickly. Big coat, t-shirt, jeans. None of them befitting of royalty. Safer that way.

Obeying instantly, Richard wiggled out of his trousers and then stared openly. 

Sebastian appreciated his admiration. The glamour humanized him, but the body was still his own, and he took great pride in the power and beauty of his muscled form. “Watch,” he ordered, tilting Richard’s chin up so that he wouldn’t look away, and then dropped the glamour. 

He knew what he looked like. Still Sebastian, with sandy blond hair and sharply chiseled features, but his eyes had gone radiant green, and his bone structure was sharper, less human. And all down his spine spilled his six green-black tentacles, which reached out to caress and restrain.

“Pretty,” Richard breathed.

Sebastian stopped, head tilting in surprise and confusion at that reaction. _Pretty?_ No one in his life had ever called him _pretty_. Most of his partners had been unwilling. Even his mates had been unwilling. And the ones that weren’t were merely too stupid to know better. All of the mates had been acquired for him: mate-bloods were rare.

“Pretty,” Sebastian repeated, baffled. Trying to make sense of him, Sebastian had to give up and shake his head. “You are a really _unique_ brand of insane.”

“Uh-huh,” Richard agreed, and spread his knees just enough to be suggestive. 

Sebastian’s eyes dropped down to take that information in, and he grinned. “Okay. Sure.”

Surging forward, Sebastian pinned him hard against the wall, his two lowest and largest tentacles wrapping around Richard’s thighs and lifting him up, spreading his legs around Sebastian. Pinning Richard’s wrists with his hands, Sebastian took possession of his mouth, kissing fiercely. There was no subtlety or nuance in Sebastian. He had never learned it. He just took what he wanted. 

The tip of one of his limbs slipped immediately down, pushing inside of Richard, while another wrapped around his dick, to writhe possessively around it. Richard gave a resistant little moan and a shudder, and Sebastian smirked into his mouth. Stupid fool. Even a mate needed to ingest some of Sebastian’s musk several days in advance in order to enjoy this. Otherwise the musk he left all over Richard’s skin and deep inside his body would burn and itch maddeningly. 

Too bad for Richard. Sebastian felt the recoil of his body as it tried to reject the suddenly overwhelming sensations. He was very familiar with those reactions in his partners. 

“Still think it’s a good idea to fuck royalty?” Sebastian purred into his ear, with a sadistic chuckle. 

Richard writhed as that tentacle thrust into him, a little deeper each time, coiling around his insides. He took a breath, actually trying to reply, and the word that parted his lips was _“more.”_

Sebastian gaped at him. “ _What?_ ”

Twitching and shuddering involuntarily at the tentacles leaving the slick wet musk all over him, Richard’s eyes snapped up to meet Sebastian’s, and they were dark. Dark and fathomless, and yet somehow still completely human. 

“More,” he repeated.

Huffing out a soft, confused laugh, Sebastian shook his head in puzzlement. His body was rejecting the musk, he recognized the signs. And yet he was still asking for more. “You weird little masochist,” Sebastian laughed, and kissed him again. 

In response to his request, a second tentacle joined the first, nudging at his entrance and forcing its way inside. Richard struggled reflexively, but Sebastian had him solidly pinned. It only took a second for the second tentacle to breach him and slick its way inside, rubbing against its partner and stretching him. 

Grinding his hips against Richard’s belly, Sebastian marveled that his partner was still very hard and very willing. The conflicting responses of resistance-discomfort and pleasure-arousal that wracked through his body were fascinating. Sebastian had never been so turned on. Even his mates had only ever been warm bodies to be fucked. This… this was very new, and very fun.

One of Richard’s hands tugged against his hold. And since it was only the one, Sebastian let go of it, curious as to what he would do. 

With no hesitation at all, even despite the way the full-body shudders that blasted through him every few seconds, Richard’s hand dropped to Sebastian’s cock and caressed it. Even now, he had such an attitude of appreciation and possession toward it that Sebastian couldn’t help but be impressed. 

Wrapping his free hand around Richard’s waist and groaning happily about the tight, hot, writhing little body trapped against him, Sebastian released his mouth for a moment. “Want it?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian laughed, tentacles slithering back out of him. “What _are_ you?”

Not expecting a response, Sebastian lined himself in and thrust straight in, growling with pleasure at the way Richard’s body clenched against him in resistance. Richard yelped in pain, his free hand pushing against Sebastian’s chest as if to try and push him away, to absolutely no avail. Sebastian just leaned his hips in, pushing steadily forward until he felt Richard’s body take him to the hilt. 

“So good,” Sebastian praised him, tentacles wrapping around Richard’s torso and caressing him, leaving behind trails of musk that made Richard shudder delightfully around Sebastian’s cock. “So pretty. I might have to keep you.”

Richard just groaned at that, past the ability for words, but his hips squirmed against Sebastian’s, silently begging him to move. 

Happy to comply, Sebastian pulled out and slammed back in, groaning with pleasure at the tight, tense body that stretched to accommodate him. He had to force his way in each time, which prevented any faster rhythm, but oh, it was sweet to feel Richard’s muscles surrender against his onslaught, parting reluctantly each time they let him in. 

The pain had finally overwhelmed Richard’s lust. Sebastian watched him take deep breaths, just trying to cope with the feeling of being stretched so wide. But he never said a word of complaint. His dark eyes watched Sebastian in turn, when they weren’t fluttering closed against the pain as he arched and moaned. 

“Definitely going to keep you,” Sebastian promised, finally managing to speed up his thrusts a little as Richard’s body stretched and surrendered to him. 

He took his pleasure, savoring each little whine and whimper out of Richard as he was fucked, and growled possessively as he came. 

Long past pleasure, Richard’s free hand curled around Sebastian’s shoulders, just letting him take what he needed. 

Finished, Sebastian pulled out. Richard was exhausted and mute, sagging against him, so Sebastian laid him across the bed and stole a brief kiss. Dark eyes watched him as he dressed. Sebastian just grinned at him, took a long minute to pull his glamour back into place, and left him there.

The whole encounter was an anomaly. Normally Sebastian would have killed his partner and disposed of the body, but he couldn’t resist the chance to have Richard again, willing or not. And it was hardly as if Richard could do anything against him. Sebastian was royalty. He was above the law. The only thing that concerned him was the scolding involved if he made a mess that tarnished the family name. 

Richard was his now. It was only too bad that he wasn’t a mate.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at this! Edritchhorrors made me this gorgeous banner:   
> http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t382/Eldritchhorrors/albionsherlock.jpg   
> I am ridiculously flattered.
> 
> We're back to John in this chapter. Note that the Mormor and Johnlock plotlines are NOT happening concurrently at this point.

When he woke again, he was warm and sleepy, wrapped up in Sherlock’s arms and safe.

Except that he _wasn’t_ safe.

They were in the back seat of the car, fully clothed again, with John held between Sherlock’s legs and within his arms, leaning back against Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock had his glamour back on, but John could still feel the ghostly caress of those extra limbs wound around him. He wasn’t sure if it was his own over-active imagination or the actual stimulus of something hidden by the glamour, but either way it took his brain all of a second to decide to panic. 

Pushing Sherlock’s arms away, John sat up and clambered out of the car.

Behind him, Sherlock startled awake, confused and concerned. “John!”

John didn’t look back, taking off down the road. The last town hadn’t been more than a couple of miles away, and it was almost dawn. He would find it and acquire instructions as to which bus would take him to the nearest train station, and then home. Safe. 

No, not home. Home wasn’t safe. Home was with Sherlock, who all along had been something strange and incomprehensible. Royalty. Some minor branch of royalty. No wonder Mycroft had a job as the British Government. They were both _offspring_. Which wasn’t bad on its own, long live the Queen. John was a loyal subject.

But all he could remember was that _thing_ he had seen in Afghanistan, the slick, dark limbs that rose, dripping from the darkness, reaching out for him, and the screams that rose from his throat, on and on, as his mind shuttered itself behind denial as the only way to survive--

“ _John._ ” 

Sherlock’s hand clasped his shoulder, trying to slow him. John shoved it off violently, scrambling out of reach.

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ” he warned, more than a little hysterical. “Don’t.”

“John.” Sherlock kept his distance, but he also stayed put, ready to start following John again if he started moving. “It’s okay.”

“ _NO_ ,” John roared at him. “No it is not! It is _not_ okay, Sherlock. No part of this is okay.” Shaking his head, John started pacing. He felt his body trembling. Every part of this situation felt out of his control, and he was freaked. “You’re royalty.” 

“An unimportant strain. Hundreds of years back. Mycroft enjoys the political advantages inherent in the blood, while I prefer to be forgotten and ignored.”

“I thought you were human,” John whispered, rubbing his hands over his face and trying not to collapse. “I trusted you.”

Sherlock’s face wrenched with pain at the past tense, as though he had been kicked, but the expression was gone in a moment. John no longer trusted that face, nor any of its expressions. Not now that he knew it was only a glamour to hide the truth.

“John,” Sherlock begged, unable to find the words that would make his mate forgive him.

“Do you get mobile reception out here?” John asked, suddenly.

“Yes.” Sherlock’s brow furrowed at the question, but he answered instantly.

“Then call Mycroft,” John suggested, already walking past Sherlock back toward the car. “Have him send a car.”

Sherlock followed along after him like a hurt puppy, catching his coat when John pulled it from the back seat and threw it at him.

“John,” he begged again, but John’s mind was made up. His need to flee the situation was only slightly contained by his steel-willed stubbornness, and he didn’t want to wait around for that balance to flip.

Turning the key in the ignition, John pulled away and left him there.

He got three miles down the road before he had to pull off to the side and hyperventilate. He had just been... Sherlock was a... 

_… slick, dark tentacles, pulling him into the darkness, wrapping around his limbs and sliding down his chest, stifling his screams with more choking, gagging limbs, each of them dripping bile…_

No. Noooooo no no no no. Don’t think about that. Think about anything else. Fields of lavender. Purple elephants. Cheese. 

One day at a time. Just. One day. At a time.

John turned on the radio to some talking station and listened to it like he actually cared about the domestic problems of some bloke from Brighton. It was a lot better than thinking about his own domestic problems. 

Hey, at least your cheating wife didn’t tentacle-rape you in some eerie planetary-orbit-related ritual in which you are now mated, right, strange man from Brighton?

Topics not being thought about. Right. Sorry, strange man from Brighton. Tell me more about how you first suspected infidelity due to your wife’s newfound pilates habit.

John had a lot of experience locking up his emotions and forcing himself not to care. He was a soldier. You got the job done, and you saved the breakdown until you were back at base. Or, better, you never had the breakdown at all. Just bottle it up and pack it away in some tiny corner of your soul. Deal with the situation and move on, or avoid the hell out of the situation and still move on.

He dropped off the rental car and took a cab to Baker Street. 

“Mrs. Hudson?” he called, already heading upstairs to his room, where he rapidly packed a bag. He ran into his confused landlady on the way back down.

“John? I thought I heard you. Is something the matter?”

“Yes. Yes, Mrs. Hudson. Something is the matter. Sherlock...” He sighed, frustrated and overwhelmed.

“Bit of a domestic?” Mrs. Hudson suggested, hopefully.

“That’s putting it mildly. Did you know that Sherlock...” he gestured vaguely, trying to form words, and made a gesture for ‘tentacles’, which only seemed to confuse her further.

“Sherlock what, dear?”

“Never mind. I can’t.” John shook his head, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I have to go. I’m sorry. I just have to go.”

“John?” She followed him down the stairs and to the door, concerned. “John, what is it?”

“Take care of yourself, Mrs. Hudson,” he said, not looking back as he hailed a cab and got in.

-

He went to Greg.

Ever since Greg had split with his wife, he’d gotten himself a depressing little bachelor pad that he kept insisting was temporary. John never asked. He knew what it was like to have a ‘temporary’ living situation in a depressing bachelor pad. Sherlock had saved him from all that, with Sherlock’s brilliant and fascinating life, with the wonderful haven that was the Baker Street flat and with Sherlock being … Sherlock.

Except that Sherlock wasn’t Sherlock, he was something out of John’s nightmares.

And they were mated.

“Aphelion went badly?” Greg said, when he opened the door. He stepped out of the way immediately so that John could enter.

“What do you mean _aphelion went badly_?” John trudged in anyway, remembering too late that Greg had been secretive and suspicious in their last conversation about aphelion. He stopped in the living room, shoulders drooping. “You knew.”

“Until our last conversation, I thought you did, too.”

“That Sherlock is... royalty.” The word tasted vile in John’s mouth.

“Take my word for it that Sherlock is a very _tame_ breed of ‘royalty’. He’s offspring. Several generations watered down from her majesty.”

John sank down on the couch, frowning. Greg had known and hadn’t told him. But that was far less of an offense than...

And anyway, where else could he go? There wasn’t anyone else he could trust.

“And you knew what would happen on aphelion,” John said. It was a statement, not a question.

Greg fetched two beers from the fridge and brought one in to John. “I saw what happened to him last aphelion, when he tried to go without.”

“Just _last_ aphelion?” John asked, clarifying. “What about the one before that?”

“The one before that, Sherlock had a mate.”

“And what happened to him?” John snapped testily. “Her? _It?_ ”

“Him.” Greg took a seat on the couch, and nursed his beer with a thoughtful frown. “He died.”

“How?” John asked, tolerating no more secrets on the topic.

Shaking his head regretfully, Greg looked up and met his eyes. “He took his own life, John.”

John didn’t have anything to say to that. Took his own life. Why? Because he couldn’t take it anymore? Being _mated_ \--whatever that meant--to _Sherlock_ \--whatever he was.

“Can I stay?” John asked, voice dull.

“Yeah. Of course.”

\--

“He’s been asking about you,” Greg informed him, the next night when he got home.

John didn’t even look up from his newspaper. “Has he?”

“I told him you were staying with me and that you needed space.”

“Space.” John snapped down the newspaper, rubbing at his face. He hadn’t slept. Every time he closed his eyes...

No. Don’t think about it.

“I don’t think there’s enough space in the world,” John said. 

Greg sat down across from him, studying his face again. “You really don’t intend to... be his mate?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Uh.” The Detective Inspector cleared his throat. “Sex, mostly, I believe.” 

“Yeah. No. Not going to happen.”

“You know that he needs...” Greg grimaced awkwardly.

“Sex?” John finished for him. “Or he’ll die?”

“Eventually, yes. His kind, as I understand it, needs to mate on aphelion, and once mated, needs, uh...”

John narrowed his eyes, studying Lestrade. He was far too interested in pursuing this topic and in encouraging John’s acceptance of it. “How do you know all this?”

Greg squirmed. “Sherlock told me.”

“Sherlock told you. And yet he didn’t mention a word of it to me. The mate in question.”

“He thought you knew. We both did. Offspring mating traditions are _weird_ , but you responded to every single one like you knew what you were doing.”

“No, I didn’t,” John corrected him.

“I didn’t notice until it was too late, John.”

“You could have told me,” John said, lips drawn in a firm line. “You made a _choice_ not to tell me. You didn’t tell me because you knew I wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

“Hell, John. Mates are _rare_. It had to be you.”

“And you’re this interested in Sherlock’s love life... why?”

“I’m his friend.”

“No.” John stood up, advancing on him. “ _No._ I have had it with these lies and secrets, most of all from you. What are you _not_ telling me?” 

Greg dropped his eyes, frowning down at the carpet. “I was a mate.”

“What?”

“Long time ago.” Greg took a deep breath, going into the kitchen and pouring them both a glass of scotch. “Before my wife. I was young. I was so young.”

John took the glass he was offered, staring at him. “You.” Swallowing uncomfortably, he lifted the glass, set it back down, picked it up again and drained it. “What happened?”

“He died. Disease. I married too soon after. Trying to … hide from my pain, I guess, which didn’t help much when it came to saving my marriage. Sherlock tried to get me. He pushed the issue for over a year. Last aphelion almost killed him because I refused him. I couldn’t do it. My marriage was already on the rocks. I was scared. Cowardly. And he was so different from…” Shaking his head, Greg took another swig of scotch. “And then you came along. Sherlock was in love with you from the start. You moved in with him on the spot, you killed a man for him within days of meeting him, and … like I said. Every courting gesture he made, you responded correctly. It never occurred to me that was just your _personality_. And if it occurred to Sherlock… I don’t know.”

“It didn’t,” John said, surprised to find himself defending Sherlock. “He didn’t know until it was too late.”

Greg dropped his head into his hands. They were all such a mess. “You have to go back to him.”

\--

He couldn’t.

Most nights he woke up in a cold sweat, when he managed to get to sleep at all. It was always the same thing. 

Cold, wet tentacles, dripping as they reached for him...

Sherlock’s were warm. Sherlock was warm. Always had been. Like a furnace, his skin producing gratuitous heat even in the coldest conditions.

And he’d thought he’d gotten over this. He _had_ gotten over this. Sherlock had kept him so busy and filled his life with so many fascinating things, his past worries had melted away. Except that now Sherlock _was_ one of those worries. He didn’t think he could look at his best friend--his mate?--without getting traumatic flashbacks.

If only he’d had some warning. If only he’d had anything before that horrible moment when Sherlock dropped the glamour and became his nightmare.

He did nothing. He watched crap telly, and drank, and sat around in guilty silence with Greg, soaking in their mutual self-loathing.

“He has a week,” Greg said, although John hadn’t asked. “One week before he starts hurting.”

“I can’t,” John whispered.

“If you want…” Greg trailed off, and walked away toward the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway, both of them tense and avoidant. “If you want, I’ll go in your place.”

John shrugged. “I don’t care.”

But he meant _yes. Please._


	4. Chapter 4

The doorbell rang with the particular 2.3 second forceful lean that Lestrade particularly favored. 

Good. It had certainly taken him long enough. But who sent him? John or Mycroft? Either was plausible. 

It had been five days since he had seen John. Lestrade had been very clear about the expected protocol in situations like these. Don’t text him. Don’t call him. Don’t, for the love of god, stalk him. He needs space.

 _He needs space_. Sherlock didn’t like that. What did it mean? He needs space. How much space? For how long? Why did he get told he was being _unreasonable_ for asking for the general amount of time and space John would need before they could resume their relationship?

And—insult to injury—Lestrade had been keeping him away from the crime scene and denying him details on the latest in a string of serial murders of royalty. 

_It’s probably not even related,_ he insisted. Of course it was related. This was a world of causality, not of coincidence.

Hadn’t called him on last night’s murder, either. No, he had to learn about that from Mycroft, who wanted him to track down some book missing from the scene. A heretical barbarian manuscript from the days before the Old Ones came. Dull. Dull, dull. 

He didn’t _want_ to be Mycroft’s errand boy, and he had no interest in the case. He already had a case. A much more crucial, _vitally_ important case: How to fix John’s emotional upheaval and get him back home where he belonged. Why was everyone being so appallingly _unhelpful_ about that?

 _I’ll give you copies of the CCTV feeds I have on John since he left Baker Street,_ Mycroft bribed, and it only took Sherlock an irritable second and a half to agree.

Valuable information regarding what was wrong with John in return for one measly little case. Fine. He’d track down the book.

Sherlock ran through the probability on various scenarios that had resulted in Lestrade at his door while Mrs. Hudson answered the door and Lestrade made his way up the stairs. 

“John?” he asked, when Lestrade walked through the door. He didn’t look up. Wouldn’t do to pay him too much attention. Paying attention to people always made them start to _expect_ it.

“No,” Lestrade said, standing awkwardly near the doorway, understanding immediately that the question was regarding John’s status rather than any case of mistaken identity. “No, he’s not coming back. No, there’s been no improvement. No, he doesn’t want to see you. No, he hasn’t even mentioned you without prompting.”

“Why not?”

“I think you triggered his PTSD. Not caused it. Triggered it. I may not be a doctor, but I know post traumatic when I see it, and he’s got all the signs.”

“Nonsense.” Sherlock scowled at the air two feet in front of his face. “He doesn’t have PTSD. I cured him.”

“Yeah, well.” Lestrade strolled further into the room and helped himself to a seat. “I rather think you broke him again.”

What trauma had John suffered that could possibly have been set off by aphelion? Sherlock knew every one of John’s files by memory. He’d long since voided any privacy that John had about his past. And although it was very clear in his files that John had suffered some kind of trauma in Afghanistan, none of them afforded any details on what. He’d seen something, and it had shattered his mind, nearly beyond repair. But he unconditionally refused to describe what he’d seen. 

Refused? Or was unable? Something indescribable, that the human mind couldn’t process? There was plenty of that in the world. Another offspring? No. Human minds dealt with the offspring with only minor strain. True royalty was harder for them to fathom. And there were things in the world that the human mind couldn’t even try to comprehend. But then why would it trigger when he saw Sherlock?

“Then I will fix him,” Sherlock snapped, irritable at Lestrade for keeping John away from him, even at John’s request. “When is he coming back?”

“Sherlock. He’s dealing with latent post-traumatic stress compounded with a rape. I don’t know if he’s _ever_ coming back.”

Sherlock glanced over for the first time, frowning. “He wouldn’t let me die.”

“I don’t think he’s even capable of realizing he has a choice on the matter,” Lestrade responded. “And if you force the issue, you might break him permanently.” 

Upset at the very possibility, Sherlock tried to process through that. Break John’s mind permanently? No. Unacceptable. He needed John. He needed everything back to the way it was. Why couldn’t John just delete these inconvenient traumas and let them both move on with their lives? But what was the alternative? Dying, and leaving John alone, so that John could go back to his sad little life of temporary flats and dull women, just like Lestrade?

“What do you propose?” Sherlock asked, scathingly. He could tell Lestrade was trying to bring this to some kind of point.

“You can…” Lestrade cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. “You can have me.”

Sherlock looked away. “No.”

 _Now_ he offered? Sherlock had tried to get Lestrade for over a year. He hadn’t understood the problem. Lestrade was unhappy in his marriage, physically compatible and lonely, and the two of them were usually on relatively pleasant terms. He was tolerable. Sherlock even found him attractive. He was stubborn, brave and not entirely mentally average, just like John. 

And _now_ he offered, now that Sherlock was mated to someone else. No. It wouldn’t do. He wanted John.

“You can’t have him,” Lestrade said, and there were so many conflicting levels of emotion in that response that Sherlock couldn’t sort them out.

“I need access to the Maugham murder,” Sherlock said, switching topics without preamble.

“The Maugham murder? What’s your interest in the Maugham murder?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Sherlock glanced over and pinned him with his eyes. So Lestrade wasn’t here on account of Mycroft’s nudging. Of course not. Mycroft would have known that Sherlock didn’t need anything but the bribery of information about John in order to take on the case. “We can go now, if you like.”

“The crime scene’s already been cleaned up, Sherlock.”

“Inconvenient, but can’t be helped. It’s his library I need to see.”

“His _library_ ,” Lestrade repeated, unbelieving. “Why?”

Sherlock just looked at him, eyebrows slightly lifted.

“Fine.” Greg growled at him. “Let’s go look at his _library_.”

—

Hugo Maugham, Esquire. Eccentric collector of literature and art, particularly of the Precursor era. Discovered dead in his library by his housekeeper, Miss Clara Ingleston, formerly of Highbridge Street. 

Sherlock browsed through the case files on his phone while they drove out to the Maugham estate. He’d read through the files on the manuscript earlier, little though there was. The Gautráðr Manuscript. It had been in the private collection of the Maugham family for centuries, finding its way there originally under suspicious circumstances from the Church archives.

The Church of Albion was just one branch of a world-wide religion in honor of the Old Ones, built from the loyalist cults who prophesied their coming. With the ancient arrival of the Great Ones, around 1100 AD, the once extremist cultists suddenly found themselves with some very powerful allies. The Roman Catholic church went into immediate schism, between the opportunists who thought that “join or die” was pretty persuasive reasoning for accepting the Great Old Ones, and the dogmatists who believed that their God would destroy the demon invaders and defend the faithful. Once the schism was ended and supremacy of the Great Old Ones was established, the remaining branches of the Vatican quietly rewrote their history to suggest that the Christian Church had been infiltrated by supporters of the Old Ones all along, especially by the members of the major surviving Orders of the Church.

It was far from common knowledge, and the public stance involved more burning of heretical materials, but the Church had a great interest in hoarding the ancient texts of the former pagan religions, and it was entirely possible that they were the ones leaning on Mycroft to recover the book in question.

What records still existed on the book varied wildly. It was a religious manuscript, from some Precursor cult in Norway. Church records variously described it as a dry record of norse myths or as a arcane tome of questionable power. 

Sensationalist rubbish. Mycroft had sent him nothing useful, though that wasn’t much of a surprise. If Mycroft had anything useful, he wouldn’t need to set Sherlock on the case.

Impatient to get it over with, Sherlock breezed through the posh stately home of the former Maugham, Esq., looking for clues on his way to the library. 

“You’re still not going to tell me what we’re doing here?” Lestrade asked, trailing along after him like an annoying puppy. Unfortunately, Sherlock needed him for access to the site. Fine. He could act as Sherlock’s assistant while they were here. Isn’t that what he wanted, to be John’s surrogate?

“Investigating a murder,” Sherlock snapped. “Isn’t that what you do?”

“Yes, and you’re always fussing about how you won’t leave the house if a case isn’t interesting enough. So, what makes this one interesting enough?”

“I’ll tell you when I find out.”

The library itself was half study and half museum. It took up half of a whole wing of the house, with branching rooms full of peculiar artifacts and bizarre art. There was a healthy mixture of Chthonic masterpieces in with the Precursor trash, but the Maugham obsession with barbarian artifacts was hardly limited to the most recent generation. 

“Are we looking for anything in particular?” Lestrade called, from two bookshelves behind. 

“A book. A _missing_ book. Large, leather bound. Probably prominently displayed. The crime scene has been kept tightly locked, hasn’t it? As long as your people aren’t _complete_ morons, then all we need to look for is what’s missing.” 

Sherlock stopped when he came to the murder site itself, scanning for clues.

“He has his study set up at the center of the library, almost like a throne room,” Sherlock said, starting to deduce aloud in his usual manner, remaining annoyed that John wasn’t here to give him the proper reactions. “We entered through the nearest door, but the room is angled to expect an approach from the side, through—“ he opened the door in question, peeking within “—an antechamber. Almost a waiting area. Designed to impress. He liked making an impression on people. Bit of a god complex.”

“The murder weapon’s in evidence,” Lestrade interrupted, pointing behind Sherlock. “But the stand where it was lying is behind you. The murderer wiped it off and put it back.”

“Did they?” Sherlock’s mind flickered back to the crime scene photos he’d browsed on his phone. The weapon was an ancient bronze dagger—Chinese, if he had to guess, but he would need an expert opinion on that. It hadn’t had a spot of blood on it in the photos, although of course forensics would find traces of blood later. “Meticulously wiped clean, and then replaced. So our murderer had an appreciation for ancient relics, although not enough to keep her from using a convenient weapon.”

“Her?”

“Yes, obviously, given from the angle of the chair and the stab wounds themselves, although of course I can’t be sure without having seen the body. A small woman, in heels. Probably beautiful, given our victim’s eagerness to show off his collection.”

Lestrade scowled, his usual reaction to the mention of beautiful women. “Now how can you possibly know that?”

“Maugham had other receiving rooms,” Sherlock said, speaking quickly in irritation that he had to explain himself. Why were average people so slow? “A whole house full of them. This was his private sanctum. Almost any item in this collection is grounds for a dangerous accusation of treason, even for a family of Maugham’s standing. He wouldn’t show this collection off to anyone, proud though he was of it. No, we’re looking for someone with credentials. An expert in her field. Looking to acquire his copy of the Gautráðr Manuscript, most likely.”

“The what?”

Sherlock ignored him. “The conversation started on friendly terms. He wouldn’t have brought her this deep into his precious collection unless he either trusted her or was very impressed by her credentials, and a pretty face might have been just the trick to dampen any lingering doubts. They sat here, you can tell by the angle of the chairs, although their treads in the carpet have been completely wiped out by the herd of imbeciles you let tromp through here.”

“Sherlock.”

“So, clearly, they were negotiating. If he was just going to show her the book, they wouldn’t have needed to sit down. He would have taken her straight to it. No, they were negotiating a sale. But at some point, it became clear to them both that the deal was impossible. Her terms, or his price.”

He paced away from the desk at the center of the study, circling the pattern of blood on the floor. “He was standing when she stabbed him. The first blow was in the stomach, and then a second blow to the back on the way down.”

“She wiped the dagger off on his jacket,” Lestrade added, taking mental notes on Sherlock’s observations.

“Thank you, Lestrade,” Sherlock said, coldly. “They left the table after the negotiations, but he didn’t show her out yet. She couldn’t have grabbed the knife on the way in without him noticing, and it’s closer to him than to her. She would never have gotten to it in time without being overpowered. So somehow she must have smoothed over the failed negotiations, and convinced him to show off his collection. If she’s attractive, he would have leapt at the chance to repair the situation, and he loves showing off his collection. That gives her a chance to grab the knife as they go past, but they had to come back around to the desk again before she killed him.”

“Sounds like speculation,” Lestrade scowled.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “I never speculate. You can see a scuff mark there, consistent with a woman’s stiletto, headed in this direction, which suggests she either paced off that direction, or they looped around the shelves this way, which I imagine we could confirm by retracing their path, but I really think we’d find out more by locating the case for the manuscript.”

Lestrade held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Looking for the manuscript,” he said, picking a direction and heading off. 

“Prominently displayed leather book!” Sherlock called after him, in case he’d forgotten. No response. “Lestrade!”

“Got it, yes!” Lestrade called back, frustration with Sherlock very clear in his voice. “Not completely incompetent, thank you.”

“Variable,” Sherlock muttered, although he did occasionally have to admit that no, Lestrade wasn’t _completely_ incompetent.

It took Lestrade fifteen minutes to find the empty manuscript case, and another five to find Sherlock.

“Found it!” he called, getting only silence in reply. “Sherlock? Sherlock, I found the case.”

Grumbling under his breath, Lestrade retraced his steps through the library, finally finding Sherlock in a far corner of the library with his nose in a book. “Sherlock.”

“Good work,” Sherlock praised him, not looking up, and handed over a crumbling leather book from a small stack he had set aside. “Start reading.”

“Reading, what—“ Taking the book, he sighed and started paging through it. “Looking for what, exactly?”

“Mention of the Gautráðr Manuscript. Or anything else of interest. Old family journals. I thought we’d start with the ones who died suspicious deaths.”

Lestrade flipped to the end of the book, stupidly expecting to find something along the lines of “and then I died a suspicious death.” 

“There’s an old family bible at the end of the row,” Sherlock explained, still not looking up from his book. “The sort that people use to record births and deaths.”

“… Ah.” Resigning himself, Lestrade leaned back against the nearest shelf and started paging through the book. 

Sherlock had started them both on the last journals of two out of three of the Maugham relatives who had been listed murdered. It took only a few minutes before Lestrade started frowning at the journal in his hand. “Evette Maugham. Most of this is accounts of parties, but she keeps talking about some necklace. Downright obsessed, really. She always talks about _the_ necklace. Goes on at length about her other jewelry, but not that one. Just ‘the necklace.’”

“Interesting. What else?”

“She seems to have had a lot of suitors, and in this journal she was—what, sixty-something? Wealthy, but not _that_ wealthy. She has to be making some of these up. Thing is…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“What?”

“If it didn’t sound completely crazy, I’d say it sounds like she was crediting the necklace with her popularity. And her… beauty, apparently. She was a bit vain.” 

“Probably irrelevant.”

Lestrade grunted in agreement, and kept reading. “Hold on, Sherlock. ‘ _And yet, every night they come to me_ ’—“

“Suitors?”

“No. The… what is this? The dwarves? The dwarves.” He looked up and gave Sherlock a flat look that seemed to say _I don’t know what weird Victorian erotica you have me reading_. Sherlock just looked back, patiently waiting for him to continue. “ _I’ve begged for them to take the necklace back, but they refuse. Not until they are paid._ And then that’s it. There’s some bit about a garden party, sounds like she doesn’t have her heart in it but I’m probably reading into that. And plans for a trip to France, but that’s it. It just ends.”

“Interesting.” Sherlock gazed at the leather cover of the book for a moment, considering. “Set it aside. We’ll take it with us.”

“Sherlock, you can’t just take things with you, either from a crime scene or a private library.”

“No, but Detective Inspector Lestrade can.” Sherlock went back to his book. After a few minutes of reading, he made a face and held the book away form himself. “This reads like sensationalist tripe.”

“Dwarves by night?” Lestrade asked. He sounded disturbingly hopeful.

“Edmond Maugham. Delusions of magical abilities, gotten from the Gautráðr Manuscript. He goes on at length about his powers of scrying and fortune-telling, which he gained by calling upon the god Wodanaz.” Sherlock wrinkled his nose at the book in confused disgust. “Wealth… vengeance upon enemies…” Shaking his head in puzzlement, Sherlock frowned and kept reading, leaving Lestrade to his own book. 

“Increasing paranoia,” Sherlock informed him, picking up from before as if there hadn’t been a ten minute pause. “He talks about how servants, family and even strangers on the street regard him as if he has a foul odor, although he cannot discover any change about himself. Women with children cross to the other side of the street to avoid him, and perfect strangers berate him for his shame and perversion, though they never specify why, even when questioned. He complains about losing staff, and the last entry details his inability to hire more.”

“Strange.”

“Keep looking,” Sherlock ordered.

They read for hours, through journal after journal, although it seemed that Sherlock’s criteria for starting with the last journals of the Maughams with suspicious deaths had been an apt choice. They found nothing more.

“You need to rest,” Lestrade said, who knew quite well that the droop in Sherlock’s shoulders was more than just physical exhaustion.

“I’m fine.” 

“Well, I’m not. It’s two in the morning. I’m done, and your crime scene pass leaves with me.”

Sherlock grunted, but it was a testament to his exhaustion that he didn’t argue. Taken away from the investigation, his mind switched back to the other case it was obsessing over. “John,” he grumbled wearily, as Greg drove them back to Baker Street. “I need John.”

Greg shook his head, and sighed. He was going to have to keep a close eye on Sherlock for the next few days. John would probably appreciate the extra space of having Greg out of the flat. Of the two of them right now, John was the one he trusted to leave on his own.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a MorMor chapter today. Enjoy~
> 
> Follow me on tumblr for notice of updates. Today there's a bonus (unrelated) mormor scrap I just wrote: marlowe-tops.tumblr.com

Sebastian went two days before he wanted more.

Everything about Richard was new and different. Sebastian had never _wanted_ someone before. Wanted sex, yes. Wanted it with a specific person, no.

He twitched his way through his duties and paced irritably down the halls of the palace until he could find a reason to sneak away. He needed sex. He needed a _mate_ , but aphelion was still some months away, and Richard wasn’t mate-blooded anyway. Sebastian would have smelled it on him. Too bad.

Restless and impatient, Sebastian took the stairs up to Richard’s flat and banged on the door, to no avail. No sound of movement from within. 

_Hiding? Maybe._

_Break the door down? No._ There was a better way.

Letting himself in to his own flat, Sebastian headed out to the balcony and leaned over the railing. A fall from the eighth floor would kill even royalty, but Sebastian had still never been afraid of heights. 

He shed his coat and shirt, figuring that the use of extra limbs would be more valuable than the concealment, at least for the time being. It wasn’t at all difficult to swing himself over the balcony and land on the floor below. The sliding glass door there was open, as he expected. Who would lock their balcony door on the seventh floor? 

The flat was empty, as expected, but Sebastian took the opportunity to snoop around. Self-help books on the bookshelf. Romance, horror and gay porn dvds in the living room. Fridge empty. Cupboards bare. He didn’t eat here. He didn’t even have dishes.

That was weird. The empty cupboards clashed with the cluttered, overly-domestic flat. Sebastian wandered into the bedroom, and found empty wardrobes, with only a few sad and lonely sets of clothes. It was like the facade of a domicile. Looked like a real person on the surface, but underneath, nothing. Empty. Blank. 

Like those damn dark eyes of his. On the surface he was annoying, flighty Richard Brook, but inside those dark eyes was nothing but the void.

Who was he? _What_ was he?

Pulling open a dresser drawer, Sebastian stared inside in absolute shock.

Toys. _Sex_ toys, in every imaginable option. Whips, cuffs, vibrators. Only a few of the options were meant for solo play, and the variety of whips and dildos was truly impressive. 

The other drawers were empty. _What the fuck?_

Sebastian sat down on the bed, baffled. Was this some kind of a trap? It was like Richard Brook had no reason for existing but to be a fuck toy for Sebastian. But he couldn’t see any possible catch. Richard couldn’t have faked his reactions during sex. And if there was any kind of plot here, it had to come from Richard himself. Those eerie dark eyes and his incredible reactions weren’t indications of someone else’s puppet.

Shutting the drawer, Sebastian let himself out, locked the door behind himself and took a seat in the hall, leaning back against Richard’s apartment door. All his life he’d spent being bored and frustrated. Smarter and stronger than even his peers, but politically useless and so restless and disinterested in his own position that he was left caught and frustrated. Too important to have free reign of his life, and not important enough to have any real power. He was constantly looking for challenges that would actually keep his interest.

Well, now he’d found one. The hottest fuck he’d ever had was hiding some kind of bizarre plot or secret. Challenges didn’t get much more interesting than that.

He only had to wait half an hour before Richard got home. The elevator pulled up to his floor, and Richard got out, lighting up happily when he saw Sebastian and blushing at the sight of his bare chest. He looked like some lovesick idiot, as if he thought Sebastian was here for him out of some kind of emotional attachment, and not just for the sex.

But he _wasn’t_ a lovesick idiot. Sebastian was going to have to remember that. He played the part very well. Sebastian could barely even see the void in his eyes behind that bright, cheerful smile. 

“Sebastian! What are you doing here? You’re not locked out of your flat, are you?”

Sebastian just raised his eyebrows at him, waiting while Richard unlocked the door. Following him into the flat, Sebastian watched as he set down a bag of groceries— _groceries_ , and wasn’t that peculiar—and fussed around putting them away. “It’s good to see you. How have you been? Do you want tea?”

“No,” Sebastian said, studying his every move. “Just sex.” 

“Right.” Richard blushed. “Sure. Let me just… okay.”

Waiting, Sebastian leaned on the counter and didn’t make a move toward him, waiting to see what Richard would do. 

Putting the whole rest of the bag of groceries in the fridge without unpacking it. Richard looked around, flustered, and then took a step towards Sebastian, leaning up against his bare chest. Very accepting of his new, abusive boyfriend. Sebastian laughed. Just the kind of personality that would need the self-help books in the living room about how not to date abusive jerks.

Fake. Completely fake. Sebastian tipped Richard’s chin up, looking into his eyes, trying to see the void behind the blank innocence of his persona. It wasn’t there. But Sebastian knew how to bring it out. _Richard_ didn’t enjoy being raped by a thing like Sebastian, not really. Someone inside him did.

“Bedroom,” Sebastian commanded. “Strip.”

He gave Richard a light shove, and he went. Sebastian watched him go, considering the nervous, huddled way that he carried himself. It was different from that sure, passionate confidence that had been in his stance when he called Sebastian _pretty_. And it wasn’t the knowing, satisfied darkness that had been in his eyes when he watched Sebastian dress and leave. 

What the hell are you?

Fascinated, he followed Richard into the bedroom, shedding jeans and glamour once he got there. Richard watched him with open lust, and his expression only gained a slight lift in the eyebrows as Sebastian went straight over to the dresser and opened the drawer with the toys. 

“These your kind of thing?” Sebastian asked. He’d never used toys at all. He’d never seen the point. Sex was just a release, and the only point in playing with your prey was because it was fun to make it scream. But now he was curious. Richard was just a veneer over whatever lay beneath, and Sebastian was tempted to see what he could do to crack that veneer and get at the mystery beneath.

“Yeah,” Richard said, his breath catching. “Anything you want.”

Considering his options, Sebastian picked out a soft leather strap, running his fingertips along the length of it. “Brace yourself against that wall,” he ordered. He had no idea how to use a whip, but he liked the heft of this one. And he had a partner who wasn’t going to tell him no. Sebastian could do anything he damn well pleased.

Drawing his arm back, he cracked it across Richard’s back, earning a sharp gasp and leaving behind a soft red mark. Yes. Good.

It only took a few more lashes before he got the hang of it, figuring out how to control aim and velocity to leave an array of bright lash marks across Richard’s pale skin, and wasn’t _that_ a pretty sight. Richard gasped beautifully at each strike, whimpering at the harder ones, and by the third lash he was rock hard and leaking. 

“You kinky little slut,” Sebastian laughed, charmed by what a little masochist he was. He swung the strap so that it curled around Richard’s hip as it snapped, within an inch of his cock. Richard _yelped_ , hips bucking. 

“Irresistible,” Sebastian praised him, walking back to the drawer and considering the contents. Picking out a butt-plug that would be large enough to stretch him, Sebastian lubricated it with the musk that leaked from his tentacles, knowing that Richard was watching every motion.

Spreading his legs a little wider as Sebastian walked back to him, Richard arched his back, presenting himself eagerly.

“What _are_ you?” Shaking his head in baffled admiration, Sebastian slid the plug into his ass, savoring the aroused whimper that Richard gave. “You just one day thought to yourself, ‘I’m going to have that big scary offspring make me his bitch’?”

Richard laughed, breathy and aroused. “Pretty much.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“You’re pretty.” Richard squirmed, casting a dark and lust-filled look over his shoulder. _There_. That wasn’t Richard anymore. That was whatever lay beneath. “I wanted you.”

“Pretty,” Sebastian repeated. “Let’s fuck the big, scary, violent royal. He’s _pretty_.”

“Yes, please.”

Sebastian picked up the strap again, laying a new stripe across the curve of his ass and making Richard jump. “You insane, lying, kinky little fuck.” Shaking his head again, Sebastian punctuated every other word with another lash, each one making Richard gasp and whimper. “I don’t have the first clue what I’m supposed to do with you.”

Richard laughed, and then shuddered, because every movement tugged at his new bruises. “Yes, you do.”

Yes. He did. 

“Bed,” Sebastian ordered, dropping the lash. “Hands and knees.”

Richard went to it, moving gingerly, but he spread his legs wide and arched his back beautifully, offering himself completely for Sebastian. 

Openly admiring the view, Sebastian pulled the plug out of him and dropped it on the floor, enjoying the little shiver from Richard as it was removed. 

“Very nice,” he purred, stroking his hand down Richard’s back and over his ass. One of his larger tentacles nudged immediately into place, squirming its way inside, into the sweet tight hole waiting for it. Richard’s low, wanton moan was deliciously rewarding, even despite the way he tensed and twitched in reaction to the musk. 

“Here,” Sebastian said, another of his limbs tapping against Richard’s lips, sliding deep down his throat. The resulting moan shivered down the length of Sebastian’s tentacle and went straight to his spine. Oh, _yes_ , that felt sweet. And the musk down Richard’s throat would give him what he needed. Another few days and he would get to feel what this was _supposed_ to be like, poor bitch.

And yet it was incredibly tempting to deprive him of it, now and then, to get that beautiful tortured squirming.

Sebastian realized with surprise that he’d already decided to keep Richard permanently. Maybe he’d tire of him eventually, but his brain was already offering up months worth of delightful activities he could try with this willing, masochistic partner, and for the first time in his life he found himself strictly careful not to damage his partner in any significant way. He wanted to keep Richard in good condition.

His tentacles fucked into Richard from both ends, while Sebastian stroked himself and reveled in the multi-layered stimulus. A second, slimmer tentacle pushed its way into the tight heat of his ass, earning an alarmed whimper from Richard. 

Pushing him down with a hand between his shoulder blades, Sebastian helped to discourage the resistant shudders that Richard’s body couldn’t prevent. He was overwhelmed between his apparent love of being fucked and his body’s automatic rejection of the musk that was being coated inside him. 

“Fuck, you’re hot,” Sebastian laughed, pulling out his tentacles so that just the tip of each remained. They were just prehensile enough that he could use them to tug the hole open for him to thrust inside.

Richard moaned loudly around his mouthful, and started to whimper again as the freed tentacles wrapped around his thighs and torso, making his skin crawl.

“Mine,” Sebastian growled in his ear, starting to fuck slow and hard into him. Thrusts deep and punishing, Sebastian pulled his tentacle in and out of Richard’s throat in time with his thrusts, loving the way he gasped more desperately for air as the fucking sped up. 

Richard whimpered and thrashed as Sebastian came, pumping his seed deep inside him. Pulling out, Sebastian watched him for a moment, fascinated by how he shuddered and gasped, but remained so incredibly _willing_ to be used this way.

“What _are_ you?” Sebastian asked again, sprawling out on the bed at Richard’s side.

Panting, the thing inside Richard watched him for a minute with those empty, dark eyes. But quickly enough, the void was shuttered off behind Richard’s blank, passive stupidity, and it was the fake mask of a person called Richard who cuddled up against him and closed his eyes to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Greg hadn’t come home last night. 

He worked late all the time, married to his job as much as ever. But this was the first time in the week that John had stayed with him that he hadn’t come home at all, and John wanted to know why. 

_Probably slept on the couch at work,_ John assured himself, and added mental reminders that he didn’t care and it wasn’t any of his business.

And yet, once Greg finally had returned, to sit at the kitchen table with an open box of case files, John found himself unaccountably curious. Why work on a case here? It was the first time he’d done it. At the Met, he would have all the resources and people he could need at his fingertips. And John _knew_ he didn’t enjoy time in his depressing flat. Who would? John was getting steadily more depressed the longer he stayed.

“New case?” he sallied. 

“Hugo Maugham, Esquire,” Greg said, without looking up. “Murdered in his study. Some missing book called the Gautrader Manuscript, which Sherlock knew was missing before he got there, and claims that it was the motive for the murder. Thing is, the book had been in the family for generations, and some of those generations come with some weird stories.”

“Weird how?”

Greg opened a file and pushed it across the table toward him. It contained photocopies of archival documents and newspaper clippings on a murder from the 1920s. There wasn’t much to go on, and both of the records seemed unusually brief and lacking in flowery prose, for the epitaph of a lord. Edmond Maugham, brutally murdered in an alleyway. Stabbed repeatedly and mugged. 

“What’s weird about this?” 

“What’s weird is that there was an old copy of his journal in the family library, and he talks about getting arcane powers from the book that’s missing. And the one other family member we found whose journal had weird, creepy, heretical stuff in her diary also died a horrible death. Hers was even worse. She was—“ Greg stopped suddenly, looking awkward.

“What?”

He handed over the file in question. “Evette Maugham, found dead in her bedroom. Doors and windows locked from the inside, and even a guard outside her door. Servants and guards report hearing nothing.”

“Gang raped.” John read. “Cause of death: _gang rape_.” He pushed the file away. “Sounds like a conspiracy among the servants, to me. Horrible, though.”

“Probably. That’s what I think. But it’s just… creepy. The whole case. Creepy.”

“What about the modern case? One of these is a modern case, right?”

“Hugo Maugham. We didn’t find _his_ journal.” Greg sighed, gathering up the files. “I’m taking this stuff over to Sherlock. Want to come?”

—

A second tread on the stair. Lestrade hadn’t come alone. 

Sherlock’s eyes were riveted to the door as the Detective Inspector walked through, and then… 

“John.”

“Sherlock,” John said, with a nod in greeting. He trailed after Lestrade, making sure to keep him between himself and Sherlock. 

Lestrade hadn’t been exaggerating. John was _damaged_. If possible, even worse than he’d been when Sherlock had first picked him up. 

_Bad. Very bad._

And yet, here he was, with every indication of being here of his own free will. 

Lestrade started talking about the case, especially the police records he’d found on the deaths of Evette and Edmond Maugham. Sherlock listened and filed the information away with half of his attention, most of it riveted on observing and analyzing John, who was busy pretending to ignore Sherlock. 

“I need to fetch something from the car,” Lestrade said, looking over to John. “Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

“Hm? Yes. Fine.” 

Sherlock listened as Lestrade walked down the stairs, keeping his attention on John but turning his gaze away. “How are you?” he asked, analytical.

“Fine,” John said, although he clearly wasn’t.

The silence stretched between them as Sherlock tried desperately to calculate a way to get John to talk to him. 

“You’re royalty,” John said, unprompted. 

“No one of importance. Minor nobility. Mycroft exploits his connections. I ignore mine.”

“Offspring,” John said.

“I thought you knew.”

 _As always, John, you see but do not observe._ The memory of that statement made him feel ill with guilt. He should have noticed. He should have known. He should have prevented this. 

“Yeah, well. Clearly I didn’t.” John gave a soft grunt that had the slightest hint of a whimper. “You’re my best friend,” he said. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“Come home,” Sherlock coaxed. “I won’t touch you.”

“Even if it means you weaken and die? No.” There was a tiny shudder in John’s shoulders. If Sherlock hadn’t been absolutely focused on him, he might have missed it. “We’ve already proved that won’t work.”

His tone didn’t clarify whether he meant _because I will consent to save you_ or _because when you realized I hadn’t consented, you couldn’t stop yourself._ Sherlock mentally marked it down as both.

“That’s a crap deal you’ve got out of life,” John commented. “Mate or die.”

Sherlock had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. Downstairs, the door opened again, and Lestrade started up the stairs.

“Will it work?” John asked, then cleared his throat. “If Greg takes my place.”

The footsteps on the stairs paused. Sherlock couldn’t tell whether or not John knew he was there. Was this topic intended for Lestrade’s benefit, or in ignorance of his presence?

“I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted. “I am not aware of any similar cases.”

There was another heavy silence between them, and Lestrade’s progress resumed. “Everything all right?” he asked, looking them both over with blatant concern. It was obvious he had decided to take responsibility for them both, having deemed them both incapable of taking care of themselves.

Sherlock was mildly distressed that he couldn’t refute Lestrade’s conclusion. “Fine.” He narrowed his eyes at Lestrade, irritable, and then moved to the table to investigate the files he had brought. Lestrade had intentionally “forgotten” something in the car, in order to leave them alone for a few minutes. Sherlock found himself grateful to him for that.

The three of them dug through case files for an hour, until Sherlock came across a page that inspired some idea, and he told them both to “shut up” and started pacing the floor, ignoring them both.

Greg looked across the table at John, shrugged, and kept reading. Sherlock would be Sherlock. 

Some time after that, Sherlock wandered into the room, having calmed down. He wasn’t his usual let’s-go-catch-the-killer or here’s-how-it-was-done, so he clearly had some further evidence that he needed to finish the case, but he had worked through whatever part of the puzzle his brain had latched on to. 

Reaching out, he set a stoppered glass vial of blue-green gel between them on the table, then walked away.

John recoiled as though it might bite, hunched his shoulders defensively, and actively ignored it. After a very long pause, giving John plenty of time to reconsider, Lestrade reached out and took the vial, tucking it into his pocket and continuing as though nothing had happened.


	7. Chapter 7

The box was delivered to him via palace staff. It had been opened and searched, like all his mail and parcels, for threats to national or royal security, and then restored (mostly) to its previous condition, and delivered to his rooms with its mystery ruffled, but intact.

It was a plain brown cardboard box, lined with expensive pinkish-gray tissue that glittered with silver threads, and within lay a woman’s hand. Bloodless and clean, the pale, white thing rested elegantly in the box, fingers lightly curled, with a beautiful diamond and pearl platinum ring on her finger. Sebastian reached in and touched it, lifting a finger and noting the rigor mortis. It was fresh and lovely, as much an amputated limb could be.

Someone had sent him a severed hand. 

He immediately guessed (and so had the palace staff, apparently, since they hadn’t made any fuss about delivering him parts from presumed murder victims) that it was intended as some sort of courting gift. Which made no sense, because courting was always mutually recognized and initiated by cohabitation. 

Sebastian couldn’t tell whether to be flattered or alarmed, and settled on utter confusion.

A severed hand. Who was crazy enough to court him with a severed hand? 

He almost missed the note in the box, which had slipped off to the side and been hidden by the tissue paper. It was written on crisp pink linen, and read:

_For my precious Sebastian,_

_-Moriarty_

It was a practical joke. It had to be a practical joke.

Slumping into the nearest chair, Sebastian stared at the note with open-mouthed bafflement. Who the hell was Moriarty? Who and what was insane enough to flaunt the normal rituals of courtship? And what was implied by _my precious Sebastian_? 

Flabberghasted, he nonetheless had the hand preserved in formaldehyde and displayed in his rooms where he could admire the gift, at least until he figured out what to do with it and whether or not it was a trap.

The next day, they delivered him another box. This one contained a severed phallus, lying on a bed of dove-gray paper, with another note.

_Be mine. XOXO._

_-M_

He was honestly a little surprised that the palace security hadn’t decided to lock down on this little display of culturally deviant affection. Maybe they merely assumed that if Sebastian hadn’t objected, the gifts were wanted and accepted. He had kept and displayed them, after all.

Confused but flattered, he preserved the second one just as carefully, and waited.

A new mystery in his life. How exciting. He almost hoped it was some kind of horrible trap, as a break in the doldrums of his life. But it was also intriguing to be courted (although he had always intended to be the one _doing_ the courting), especially by someone resourceful and crazy enough to send him neatly-wrapped body parts.

The third one was a severed head, of a young man just come of age, caught forever at the cusp of innocence and corruption. Sebastian set it on the shelf with the others, and gazed thoughtfully at his macabre little collection. He set the note in front of him, savoring it for a few minutes before he reached out and opened it. 

_Hey, pretty. Fuck me._

_-M_

Sebastian stared at it for only a few seconds before he was up and moving, grabbing his coat on the way out the door.

 _Richard._ Or whoever he actually was. That cheeky little bitch.

Richard was not capable of sending him severed limbs. But the person inside him absolutely was. And they practically lived together already. Richard lived directly beneath him, and lately he slept over in Sebastian’s flat more often than not. It all fit.

He got to the flat as quickly as he could, but both of them were empty. There wasn’t any sign that Richard had been back to either residence since the last time Sebastian had left, and that was several days ago. 

Confused, frustrated, and now _horny_ , Sebastian slid down to sit on his floor, thunking his head back against the wall. 

_Are you courting me, you crazy bastard?_

_Where are you?_

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he scrolled down through it. He’d made Richard program his number into it, so that he could call him when he needed him. But instead of skipping straight to the Rs, he scrolled down to M. And right there, an entry he hadn’t put in.

Moriarty.

He called it.

“Hello, darling.” The voice on the other end was a slick purr, unfamiliar and yet unquestionably the person he’d seen glimpses of inside Richard. Moriarty. “Got my presents, did you?”

Sebastian shook his head, unbelieving. “Who are you?” 

“I’m your _boyfriend_ , kitten. Name’s Jim Moriarty. Come see me, won’t you?”

“Where?”

“There’s a club called Elysium, not far from the flat. You know the place. I own it. I own the building you live in, too.”

Sebastian felt his adrenaline spike at the blatant display of power. He didn’t doubt that it was true. “And then what?”

“See you soon, honey,” Jim chirped, and hung up.

Staring at the phone for a moment, Sebastian tucked it back in his pocket and got up.

The doormen were expecting him, directing him to the back of the club, where he passed through two blood-lit doors into a VIP room, and then through a matte black door into a dark, elegant lounge room, where Jim Moriarty sat like an emperor, alone on a huge couch. Sebastian walked a slow circle through the room, noting the large window of a wall with one-way glass where he could see the whole club at a glance, and the six smaller screens that lined the upper part of two walls.

“What are you?” Sebastian asked.

“I’m whatever I need to be, to get the things that I want.”

“Like Richard Brook.”

“Yes, darling. Worked like a charm, didn’t it?”

Sebastian paced the floor, keeping his distance. “Why?”

“Tut. I told you. You’re pretty.”

“I need a better explanation than that.”

Moriarty laughed, as if he found Sebastian’s antics cute. “You’re interesting. The bored little prince, so full of anger and frustration. So desperate for a reason to live.”

“So?”

“So I want you, tiger. Do I need an ulterior motive?”

He might. Sebastian didn’t like being appreciate being strung along. Snarling, Sebastian advanced on him and pinned him with a hand on his throat. “What are you?”

Calm as ever, Jim met his eyes and smiled, showing his teeth. “Ambitious.”

Sebastian was certain now that he was facing some kind of underworld crime lord, but oh, he was fascinated. Richard—Jim—was still so small and pretty, he writhed so wonderfully once Sebastian got him in bed, and the mate smell on him was irresistible.

Wait. _What?_

Sebastian pulled back, startled. “You smell like a mate.”

“Yes, darling. Just for you.”

Eyes narrowing, Sebastian peered at him, deeply suspicious. “You didn’t smell like one before.”

Jim waved a casual hand of dismissal. “It’s this little thing I’m developing. Dampens the smell to make it undetectable to your sort. Very financially lucrative, in certain quarters.”

“Ambitious--You want to be mated to a member of the royal family, is that it?”

“It’s just a bonus that you’re clever, too.”

“I’m low-ranking and useless.”

“Oh, sugar. That can be changed.”

Still wary, Sebastian took a seat nearby, keeping a close eye on him. “And what do I get out of mating you?”

Moriarty’s grin was icy, beneath the two dark voids within his eyes. “Fun.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherstrade sex this chapter. It's skippable, if you prefer to avoid it. There's no truly crucial plot in this chapter aside from the emotional arc.

Greg left work early every day that week. Usually he stopped by his own home to collect John, since he was forced to babysit these two grown idiots who wouldn’t take care of themselves. 

The three of them had been working on the Maugham case, until Sherlock suddenly refused to investigate further, and declared he had all the information he needed.

“Well, then,” Greg had asked. “Who’s the murderer?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you that when I find her.”

“And when are you going to find her?” 

“Soon.”

They couldn’t get anything more out of him. 

Tonight, Greg picked up food on the way, but not John, wandering up the stairs to find Sherlock. He’d been increasingly shaky and slow. They had both noticed it. Greg was concerned. He had no idea if John was likewise concerned. Who understood the brain of a PTSD rape victim?

Poor idiots. He loved them both, but they were both so _broken_. He’d been hopeful before, at the way the two of them seemed to heal and compensate for each other’s damage, and they could function better together than either one did apart. But now they were each other’s worst nightmare, and everything they did just left more bloody, sharp edges between them.

“Sherlock?” Greg called. “I brought dinner.”

“John?” Sherlock didn’t look up from his work, peering through a microscope. 

“No. I didn’t bring John. Now come eat.”

“Not hungry.” 

“Yes, you are,” Greg retorted, starting to unpack the bag. “You’re shaking visibly. I know you. You’re the kind of stubborn arse who hides all sign of weakness. And of the two of us, I am not the annoyingly detail-oriented deducing detective. So if _I_ can tell that _you_ are shaking, we’ve got a real problem. Now get over here and eat.”

Sherlock glared at him, but he stormed over to the table and sat, sulking petulantly. 

Greg ignored the sulk, putting utensils in front of him and waiting until he started eating, likewise ignoring Sherlock’s smartass _look, I’m eating, are you happy now?_ expression.

They ate in hostile silence, which slowly softened into cranky acceptance. 

“How is he?” Sherlock asked, gazing into his food as if bored, even though Greg knew he was intensely analyzing every word and gesture that Greg made. 

“You’ve seen him as recently as I have. He’s shell-shocked. God knows what you did that set him off, though.”

“It’s the tentacles.”

Greg stopped mid-bite. “Is it?”

Sherlock nodded quickly, pushing away the rest of his food. “I’ve been testing his reactions to various things. He’s fine around mention of other kinds of royalty. His post traumatic stress disorder is triggered by tentacles, although I imagine the rape didn’t help.”

“I’ve been trying to get him to see a therapist, but--”

“That won’t help him,” Sherlock interrupted. 

“Sherlock. Therapy can truly help people. I’ve seen it.”

“I don’t doubt that you have. But it cannot help John. He isn’t a normal person, as much as he looks like one on the surface. Things that would help normal people—like therapy—are absolutely damaging to him. If you send him to a therapist, he will become increasingly resistant and withdrawn. I cured him before and I could cure him again the same way, except that now I’ve created a paradox. The things that would help with the problem of tentacles will trigger his feelings about the rape, and vice versa. He’s left with no option but avoid all related topics, or flee. I can’t fix him, and therapy can’t fix him. He can only fix himself.”

“And what about you?”

Sherlock looked away, scowling sharply at the wall. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re suffering. And worst of all, you don’t know how to fix it. You must hate that.”

Sherlock redirected the scowl at Greg.

Putting up his hands briefly in surrender, Greg shrugged and started unbuttoning his shirt.

“What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing,” Greg replied, with the tone he used to blackmail Sherlock into behaving, usually in cases of ‘if you don’t share the evidence you find with me I will call another drugs bust on your flat.’

“Why are you doing this? You have my musk inside you—I’m attuned to you now. I can feel the self-loathing coming off you in waves.”

That made Greg pause, shirt half un-done. “I need it,” he confessed, with another no-big-deal shrug. “And so do you. It’s wrong for both of us, I know that. I know what it feels like to be mated. But we still need this. And you’re running out of time.”

Sherlock just watched him, silent. Greg could almost see the gears ticking behind his eyes, calculating outcomes and analyzing how best to get the end result he wanted.

Resuming his unbuttoning, Greg let him process.

“And once I get John back?” Sherlock asked. “I’m of the understanding that these things tend to create emotional attachments.”

“I already have an _emotional attachment_ to you, Sherlock. People get hurt in relationships. That’s how these things work in the real world. People need things, and they damage each other.” He finished the last button, and shrugged the shirt off. “I’m used to it. No matter what happens in life, one day you’re going to end up alone, with a corpse, or a messy divorce, or a neatly-packed box of your things that your ex left on your doorstep while you were out. And it hurts. It really does. But I am not going to let you die, and I am not going to let John lock himself inside his own self-destructive misery, just because I might get hurt.”

“All lives end,” Sherlock murmured. “All hearts are broken.”

Suddenly sheepish, standing before Sherlock without a shirt, Greg forced a weak smile. “I don’t recognize the quote.”

“It’s a family saying. My brother is fond of it.” Sherlock rose to his feet, walking away toward his bedroom. 

Startled, Greg followed, unsure if that was invitation or dismissal. “Your brother sounds like a wise man.”

In his bedroom, Sherlock had begun unbuttoning his own shirt, although he wouldn’t look at Greg. “Please don’t ever tell him that. His ego is insufferable enough already.”

The mood between them was tense and awkward, and all wrong for what they were doing. Greg could tell that Sherlock still hadn’t forgiven him. All that time that Sherlock had spent needing him, and Greg had refused. It had hurt Sherlock’s fragile pride. And despite all the hell he gave Sherlock, he still knew how fragile that pride could be.

“Let me,” Greg said, stepping forward and putting his hands over Sherlock’s. 

Startled, Sherlock looked up, his eyes wide and spooked for a moment before he shuttered the nerves behind his usual cool facade. “Fine.”

If this was going to help either of them, Greg had to get him to relax. “You’re breathtaking,” he said, keeping his motions slow and steady, his voice soothing and not making eye contact, as though Sherlock was a skittish colt. “I know I’ve never told you that, but it’s true. You breeze through my crime scenes like you’ve just come from a fashion shoot, all untouchable alien confidence, and it makes you beautiful.”

Sherlock’s head tilted in gentle confusion, both needing and spooked by the flattery, and far too proud to admit how much he liked it. His hands slowly lowered to his sides, allowing Greg to undress him without interference. 

When he had removed Sherlock’s shirt, Greg looked up and met his eyes. “Show me. Please.”

Expression reserved, Sherlock held his gaze while he dropped the glamour. Those pale blue eyes flooded with green, and took on the neon radiation glow of their natural form, while his jaw and cheekbones sharpened, pulling his normally ethereal face into something that was eerily inhuman. Black arabesques spiraled like vines beneath his skin, curling along his muscles and twining along his hipbones. 

Fearless, Greg ran his fingers along one of the tentacles that was wrapped around Sherlock’s chest, admiring the dark beauty of the thing. Sherlock let him, staying motionless even as Greg reached up to touch one of the two shorter, more sensitive tendrils that curled around his neck and over his collarbones. 

“Incredible,” Greg told him, his hand winding up into Sherlock’s hair as he drew him into a kiss. Sherlock was pliant despite his obvious nerves, and returned it with shy hesitance. 

Keeping the kiss still chaste as he coaxed Sherlock into relaxing, Greg’s free hand rubbed over Sherlock’s hip and back. He stroked the warm, dark tentacles that tumbled from his spine until they began to reciprocate, winding themselves around Greg and pulling him close. 

“Oh!” Briefly startled as the limbs tightened around his back, Greg grinned at him, laying a few light kisses along Sherlock’s jaw and down his neck. “Good,” he said, to reassure any nerves that Sherlock had about the subject. He trailed his kisses over one of the tendrils along his neck, hand stroking gently along the other, and was rewarded when Sherlock shuddered with pleasure at the sensation. 

Growing bolder, he sucked at the tip of one of them, and felt the tentacles around his back tighten instantly, pulling him closer against the warmth of Sherlock’s chest. Taking that as permission, Greg leaned his head closer, opening his mouth, and was pleased when it pushed its way eagerly into his throat. 

Moaning, because gods damn it had been a long time since he’d been with a partner like this, Greg let it push inside him, bringing his mouth almost to where it joined Sherlock’s spine, and felt its partner curl around the back of his neck, keeping him close. 

He felt Sherlock’s posture change and his hands close tightly around Greg’s hips as he went from from unsure and nervous to aroused and convinced within seconds of Greg’s sucking.

Letting Sherlock fuck his mouth, Greg toed off his shoes and kicked them aside, rubbing his hips against Sherlock’s until Sherlock got the idea and caught on that they needed to be wearing less clothing. He even produced an impatient growl as he pulled away enough to unfasten Greg’s trousers. Tentacles wrapped around him, the extra limbs eager to help in stripping off Greg’s clothing and confiscating it out of his reach. 

“I like when you get pushy,” Greg teased, and was silenced by Sherlock’s mouth over his own, kissing heatedly as he pushed Greg back onto the bed and down. 

Stripping quickly out of his own clothing, Sherlock climbed on top of him. He was so beautiful, all pale moonlit skin and long, undulating tentacles. Warm and smooth, slick with their own musk, the limbs entangled around him, intimately trapping him.

Impatient now, one of them slipped between his legs, pushing up into him in a way Greg hadn’t felt in _years_. It was incredible. He felt whole and complete, skin tingling deliciously in every spot that the tentacles touched. Sherlock’s mouth moved down, nipping and sucking at his neck and freeing his mouth so that another of the tentacles could fill him up from that end. Greg knew very well that every inch of the tentacles was erotically sensitive, most of all near the tip, and there were few things the offspring liked more than pushing as many limbs as they could fit inside a partner, so that they could have that tight, hot clench around every single one. 

A second one wiggled its way into his ass, accompanied by a low groan of satisfaction from Sherlock, as another wrapped itself around Greg’s dick, writhing and squeezing around him in the most wonderful way. Moaning and arching, Greg spread his legs, expecting Sherlock to want to thrust to the hilt inside him at any moment. 

But instead, Sherlock straddled his waist, tentacles sliding out and back in as they re-adjusted around him, and eased himself down onto Greg’s length with a soft sigh of pleasure. Surprised but very willing, Greg rocked his hips up, grinding into Sherlock’s perfect, tight ass as he was himself fucked from both ends by Sherlock’s long, tangling limbs. 

The confident, brusque Sherlock that he knew was now so vulnerable. Cheeks flushed with pleasure, Sherlock’s head dropped forward, his dark curls hiding his expression. The soft gasps and whimpers were eloquent enough. Reaching down, Greg wrapped his hand around Sherlock’s huge cock, stroking him in return. He got an immediate moan, and stroked faster, matching his motion to the speed of Sherlock’s hips as they rode him. 

Sherlock hadn’t spoken a word since they began, and didn’t break his silence even as he came. He arched forward, with a choked whimper, tentacles tangling tight and pushing deep into Greg, and he came, spattering his seed over Greg’s hand and chest.

Greg followed him over almost immediately afterward, overcome with being filled and surrounded by the sharp, exquisite pleasure that was Sherlock.

Sherlock stayed there for a moment, wrapped around and inside him, and Greg could feel the soft tremors in his body. But quickly enough, he rolled away, turning his back on Greg and curling up. His tentacles began to fade almost immediately as he wrapped the glamour back around himself, and Greg knew how much effort that took, especially right after sex.

“Go,” Sherlock said. 

Without a word, Greg collected his things, and left.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aphelion Redux: Mormor

The hardest thing was fitting into each other’s life.

Sebastian was a loner, and always had been. He’d never managed any kind of real relationship. The mates he had were only things that he used until he broke them. His life contained only the responsibility that he couldn’t avoid, from the other offspring and the true-blooded royalty who held authority over him. He was used to having all the time he liked to squander as he pleased.

Jim’s life was rigidly scheduled, and filled with people and personas. He ran a far-reaching empire of black market connections, trading in all manner of goods and services. Some of the wings of his empire served the royal families, and others defied them. Jim funded Restorationist sects and destroyed them again, using everyone and everything that he could as pawns in order to gather more and more power. 

But his own nature limited him. A mere human could never hold true power in a world ruled by the Great Old Ones, and there were certain places he couldn’t go, things he couldn’t acquire, and creatures who wouldn’t obey, because of the pristine glass ceiling that wrapped around the world, keeping the power firmly in the tendrils of the royal families.

That was why he had obtained Sebastian (or at least, it was as much he _told_ Sebastian of his own reasons, and Sebastian had enough sense to know that Jim never told anyone all his reasons for doing anything). Sebastian had enough power to be useful, and was obscure enough to be overlooked. Jim pulled all the strings he could in order to make Sebastian happy. He spoiled him, manipulated events in their favor, and provided him with any number of exotic treasures.

But in return, he was constantly demanding Sebastian’s time and energy, and sending him to complete tasks that required the touch of royalty. Some of the tasks were fun, but plenty more were dull and annoying. Sebastian complained constantly, and the two of them clashed frequently regarding who had the final say on any matter. 

The only thing that they agreed on was the sex, in exchange for which Sebastian was willing to be patient and even obedient about Jim’s tasks. Jim was his promised mate, the only one he’d ever picked out for himself and truly _wanted_. Come aphelion, Jim would be his, and the sex would be even better. That was worth a little bit of waiting and being ordered around.

Places of power were tightly controlled among the royal family, and possessed according to a strict hierarchy, but almost any royal of significance owned at least one place he could disappear to once or twice a year. 

Sebastian spent his days in the London palace, under the eye of the Queen, but when court life got too stifling, he was free to escape back to the rural backwater of Ireland where his family had bequeathed him an unimportant little castle that sat over a place of power. He kept a skeleton staff to dust out the corners and fluff the beds, and they were happy enough to be ignored for months at a time.

A false, chipper persona firmly in place, Jim—Richard—tagged along at his side, babbling happily about the natural beauty of the countryside and the gothic charm of the rotting old castle. Sebastian ignored it, one arm slung possessively around Richard’s shoulders. He appreciated Jim’s false identities for that, most of all. Jim was alien and aloof, full of strange moods and tempers. Richard was obedient and calm, willing to be pushed around by a possessive boyfriend. 

The little staff of two greeted him, welcoming him back as though he was a beloved and doting employer, and Sebastian tolerated them fondly, thanking them for their trouble and sending them off as quickly as he could. They were happy to scoot away for a few days to visit family in nearby towns, leaving Sebastian with a stocked pantry and an entire castle to enjoy.

“Oh, Sebastian, don’t you just love the stonework on the lintel?” Richard said, snuggling up against his side. “The little gargoyles are just _adorable_.”

“Stop it,” Sebastian grunted, but he dropped his arm back around Jim’s shoulders anyway. “They’re gone now. You know I hate it when you’re fake like that.”

Jim laughed, and now it had the slight cruel edge to it that Sebastian recognized. “I still think the gargoyles are just adorable.” Pulling away, he started making a thorough investigation of the kitchen, taking stock of what food he did and didn’t deem edible. “The things you country folk consider acceptable cuisine, darling, really.”

“I’m not country folk.”

“Yes, you are, kitten. You really, really are. That’s okay. I find your coarse edges _charming_.” 

“I’m _royalty_ , you annoying little priss, not some ignorant farmer.”

“Royalty can be coarse too, precious. Case in point, really.” Tilting his head to the side, Jim indicated for him to follow. The inspection of the kitchen was complete, now he intended to explore the rest of their domain. “Aphelion, Bastian, are you excited?”

Grumbling to himself, Sebastian trailed after him. “Apprehensive.”

“Apprehensive? Darling, why?” Jim spun around and pouted at him. 

“You are inspiring of confidence about once a week, at best.” Nudging forward into his personal space, Sebastian pressed him lightly back against the wall of the corridor and kissed him briefly. “The rest of the time I suspect you’re planning to eat me.”

“Have I told you it’s adorable when you’re paranoid?”

“Frequently.”

“You should really consider being less paranoid.” Smiling beatifically up at him, Jim tapped a finger against Sebastian’s lower lip.

Sebastian bit the finger. “I’ll keep it in mind.” 

“Well, I assure you that I have no intention of eating you, unless we’re using the euphemism for oral sex, in which case I would be delighted.” Flouncing away, Jim opened doors at random and peeked inside. Most of the rooms he deemed boring and closed them again immediately, but some few were worthy of deeper inquiry. 

“And you want to mate me, why?” Sebastian prompted, following him from room to room like a faithful dog.

“Would you believe me if I said that it is a sign of my fathomless love and devotion?”

“No.”

“Ah, well. It sounded fun. How’s that?”

“I trust you about as far as I can throw you,” Sebastian grumbled.

“You could throw me at least across the room, dove,” Jim pointed out, helpfully. “Bored now. Show me your _Place of Power_.”

Cocking a sarcastic eyebrow at the dramatic emphasis, Sebastian ignored the request, staying where he was.

“Why are you still wearing your camo, Basti?” Wandering back over to him, Jim leaned up against him and stole a light kiss. “We’re alone. Dress down, soldier.” 

Shrugging, Sebastian shed coat and shirt, removing the glamour along with them. 

“Better.” Jim kissed his chest, fondling one of the tentacles that hung over his shoulders. “Very pretty. Now show me what I want to see.” 

“It’s nothing special,” Sebastian told him. “And it isn’t like it’s power you can use.”

“I know that, tiger, but at least one of us is excited about tonight, and I would like to see. Be a dear.”

As much as he distrusted him, Sebastian couldn’t resist Jim. He was such an absolute mystery, wrapped up in a pretty, fuckable little package. Everyone else Sebastian had ever met was boring and ordinary, and either bowed and scraped before him or ordered him around. Jim was a refreshing exception to the rest of Sebastian’s life. 

Relenting with a long, heated kiss, Sebastian pulled away and led him downstairs.

The castle had been built on a stone outcropping. The stone that had been excavated to build the cellars and crypts was the same stone that had built the walls, and the tunnels beneath the castle were just as expansive as the structure above. Electric lighting had only been installed in the upper levels of the basement. Sebastian picked up an oil lamp as they descended, set waiting at a convenient alcove. His night vision was excellent, but Jim’s was that of an ordinary human, and there were torches he would want lit farther down. 

Deep beneath the castle proper was a vast and rough-hewn cavern, at the heart of the rock formation that held the castle. Sebastian went around the edge of the chamber, lighting torches. They flared up easily, revealing progressively more of the vast room.

In the light, the rough-carved walls were revealed to hold bas-relief carvings. They were very, very old, worn down and coated over by calcification, but the forms still be identified with close inspection.

Most of them depicted great Cthulhu in R’lyeh, from some long-departed cult that had remained loyal over the centuries of darkness and waited for his return. But in the end, mighty Cthulhu had gone to rule the Americas, and the Queen of Albion had stayed to rule the Isles. 

At the center of the cavern, as ancient and rough-hewn as the rest, was a simple stone altar.

Jim ran his fingers over it. It was cold, with a deep stone chill that would never be warmed. This was no place for warmth. Even the light of the torches seemed alien and intrusive, brightening a place that belonged in darkness.

Sitting down on the stone altar, Jim crossed his legs and propped chin in hands. “Not very flashy, is it? What does this place feel like for you?”

Lighting the last torch, Sebastian came to him. He set the lantern down by the side of the altar. The feeling of the place was unforgettable for him. He used to bottle that feeling in his heart, and pull it out when the palace life got too stifling and the tedium of the world weighed down on him. He didn’t know if what he felt was like the religious experiences that humans reported, or the serenity that the true-blooded royalty described. It was simply the feeling of the place of power, overlaid with an especial possessive fondness that it was _his_ place of power, and waiting on the altar was his intended mate.

Taking Jim’s hands, Sebastian eased him down on his back on the stone, pinning his hands gently above his head. “Listen. Feel.”

He didn’t know if Jim could feel it. Sebastian had never tried this before. But Jim was mate-blooded. He was intended. If any human could feel it, it should be him.

“Our gods are chthonic, of earth and sea. Royals take their strength from depth and darkness. And places like this are where the pulse of the earth runs strong through the crust. Listen. Feel it in your spine.”

Sebastian could feel it. It thrummed through his veins, relaxing and arousing him.

“Like a heartbeat,” Jim said. “Vast and slow and dim, but there.”

“Yes,” Sebastian growled with pleasure. His mate. His Jim. Not long to go now.

“How does it give you power?” Jim tugged his hands out of Sebastian’s grip, winding them loosely around his shoulders.

“It’s not strength. Not that kind of power, at least not for offspring. It just … fills me up. Lessens the ache of everyday life. Mating does the same thing, but that’s a harsher, more immediate ache.” Sebastian settled on top of him, holding some of his weight on his elbows so as not to crush Jim.

Quiet and calm in a manner that they usually only shared after sex, Jim held him. “Fill yourself up, darling,” he whispered, combing his hands through Sebastian’s hair. “Take everything you need, tiger.”

They went the day before aphelion without fighting. Sebastian was lazy and content in his place of power, and neither of them had schedules to keep. Sebastian took him back down to the altar to fuck that night, although they knew the bond wouldn’t set until aphelion.

—

“My head aches,” Sebastian complained, pacing the floor of the great hall.

“So sit down and put a cloth over your eyes like a normal person,” Jim responded sharply. Sebastian had woken up cranky at dawn, and kept Jim up with his restlessness. It left both of them with shorter tempers than usual.

“Everything aches,” Sebastian elaborated, still pacing.

“You said that. You have yet to mention why.”

“I don’t _know_ why!” Sebastian shoved over a table, fuming. “Everything feels twitchy. Sick. Bad. Wrong.”

“You’ll be fine after tonight,” Jim assured him. “It’s just jitters.”

“It’s not just jitters.” He fixed Jim with a glare. “Did you do something?”

“No, darling. Nothing out of the ordinary. I want tonight to go off perfectly, you know that. Nothing in the world could be more useful to me than being mated to someone of royal blood, and I wouldn’t want anyone but you. It’s just jitters.”

Sebastian snarled at him. “I’ll be downstairs.”

—

He didn’t come back up.

Laying on the altar soothed the edges off the restless ache, and the soft pulse of the earth’s energy comforted him, although he still felt dizzy every time he tried to stand up.

He could feel the approach of aphelion even without a clock to guide him. The sun’s grip on the earth loosened by the moment. Every member of Sebastian’s race waited for that perfect dark moment where it was weakest, when their veins would flood with need. 

It was a convenient little genetic quirk, that some humans held in their blood elements that soothed that need. Sebastian had read once in a history that it had been a gift, from the Black One of Egypt. Thousands of years ago, before the Old Ones left and returned again, he had introduced a recessive genetic strain into humanity that made them mateable. In one act, humanity became the most perfectly desirable and useful species in the universe. 

The gods could have roamed the stars, but here on Earth they had an entire race designed to fill their needs. Nyarlathotep had earned himself the eternal gratitude of the other gods, for that neat little trick of genetic design.

After the torches burned down, Sebastian was left in darkness, but he preferred it that way. As the night deepened, he wondered if he would have to go fetch Jim. But his partner knew the timing, and appeared with lantern in hand when Sebastian needed him most. 

Sebastian winced as he sat up, headache unrelenting. “Strip,” he ordered, impatient to begin.

Saving the biting remarks for once, Jim set down the lantern and obeyed. He was always well-behaved when it came to Sebastian’s demands for sex. It was the one area where he didn’t question Sebastian’s dominance or authority.

Shedding his own trousers impatiently, Sebastian pushed him down on the altar. In no mood for foreplay, Sebastian’s tentacles slid into him at once—one down his throat and another inside his ass. A second tentacle nudged at his entrance the moment the first was settled, and the two of them slicked into him at a counter-rhythm, fucking him hard and stretching him out for Sebastian.

Willing and cooperative, Jim moaned for him, arching his body to give Sebastian the best possible access.

“Mine,” Sebastian breathed, pulling out his tentacles so that he could force his dick deep inside. “All mine. Forever mine.”

His limbs wrapped themselves around Jim’s wrists and thighs, holding him open for Sebastian to fuck. He could feel the need growing, reaching out for the part of Jim that would complete him. 

“Say you’re mine,” he growled, rutting hard into his lover.

“Yours, darling,” Jim purred. “Your mate.”

Sebastian groaned low, waiting for the perfect _click_ inside him of the bond fitting into place, but there was nothing. He grasped for it, fucking hard and fast and expecting every single thrust to be the one that gave him that perfect completion.

Nothing.

The threads of chthonic power tangled tighter around him, and his perfect moment was gone.

Sebastian’s head was pounding.

“Sebastian?”

“Something’s wrong.” He felt sick. His hips kept moving into Jim with desperation, but he was too dizzy and sick to continue. World spinning, Sebastian let go of him, falling sideways. 

He saw Jim’s concerned face hovering over him for a second before he blacked out.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today. In the next chapter you'll see the plotlines start to converge.

John looked up from his laptop when Greg returned, knowing immediately what had happened. Rumpled clothing, guilty expression, spring in his step mediated by a slight limp and an increase in the weight of the world that he always seemed to carry on his shoulders. He couldn’t possibly look any more just-fucked.

“Did it help?” John asked, directing his attention back to the laptop. 

“I don’t know. Have to ask Sherlock.” 

“Did it help you?”

Greg smiled sadly, looking away. “I don’t know that, either.”

John shut his laptop, folding his hands and thinking. “I’m going to try staying at the Baker Street flat again. For a couple of nights.”

“You’re welcome here as long as you need,” Greg nodded. “Whenever.”

“Thanks.” Forcing a smile, John got up and left the room.

—

Sherlock’s shakes had subsided. John watched him, while Sherlock focused on solving some case. He was comfortable alone in a room with Sherlock now, and he woke up screaming in his bed in the Baker Street flat slightly less often than when he slept on the couch at Greg’s, but they both adamantly avoided any conversation regarding mating. It let them keep a fragile truce, as John slowly tried to acclimate himself to Sherlock.

“Let me see,” John said, apropos of nothing.

Sherlock looked up, forgetting his case and focusing entirely on John in an instant. “See?”

“You. I want to see you. Without the glamour.”

Looking down at his experiment, Sherlock considered that for a moment, calculating all the outcomes before he decided on a response.

The glamour slicked off of him, accompanied by a very slight toss of his head. Pretending to focus all his attention on the case, Sherlock went back to what he was doing.

It gave John the space he needed. With Sherlock’s attention apparently rapt on the case, John could study him at his leisure. 

The uppermost tendrils rested on his collarbones, top two buttons of his shirt undone to give them room. John could see now how Sherlock’s favorite coat and scarf were designed to protect and conceal his tentacles in case the glamour slipped in public. The middle two limbs were hidden by his shirt, seemingly wrapped around his torso to keep them out of the way, while the lower two tentacles slipped out the bottom of his shirt, where it always seemed to ruck up in the back, and tangled around the legs of his chair. 

John looked his fill. Twice he had to fight down rising panic attacks, but for the most part he could accept that this was Sherlock, and that the unearthly parts of him were still parts of Sherlock. Just tentacles. No more alarming than an octopus. 

After four days, John got the courage to touch. 

“Sherlock,” he said, waiting for his flatmate’s attention to swivel over to him. Sherlock had left the glamour off while they were alone, letting John get used to the sight. 

He made a breathtaking spectacle, pacing through the flat as he puzzled through a case, tentacles arcing and writhing around him, and those eerie, vibrant green eyes absolutely focused in his thoughts. He was beautiful and terrifying, and it made John’s heart thud with a medley of feelings every time he saw him.

Standing up, John wandered over to stand in front of him, reaching hesitantly toward Sherlock. “May I?”

Unsure, one of Sherlock’s limbs reached up, as though he was offering a polite handshake.

Swallowing his nerves, John touched it. His fingers drifted lightly over the top. It felt warm and smooth, like lizard skin, and the tip was dry except for the tiniest bead of moisture. John avoided that, running his fingers down the side of it. Sherlock rubbed it against his hand, keeping his movements slow so as not to spook him, and after a moment John clasped it loosely.

“Not so bad,” John laughed, giving the tentacle a brisk how-d’ye-do shake and then walking straight out of the room.

They increased the touches slowly. John would go out of his way to brush against Sherlock as he walked through the room, and after a day Sherlock started returning the favor. One of his limbs would brush casually against John’s arm as he walked past, always careful to give him plenty of space. 

But when John noticed that Sherlock had started becoming shaky, their progress suddenly halted. John was stiff and withdrawn, avoiding him again. 

So Sherlock paid a quiet visit to Greg, which none of them discussed, and after a few days John relaxed again to resume the touches. In slow, painful fits and starts, their relationship healed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a rather unpleasant murder that Sherlock goes to investigate near the end of the chapter. Bit squeamish.

Sebastian woke up in his bed at the castle, scowling at the cheery morning sun and aching all over. Everything hurt

Jim was curled up in a chair by the bed, conducting business via his phone the way he often did. He came over to check on Sebastian, fingers brushing lightly over his cheek. “You’re awake. Looks like it might actually stick this time.”

Frowning in confusion, Sebastian watched as he went to ring the bell for the servants and returned. “Drink,” Jim ordered, holding a glass for him and putting a straw between his lips.

Water. Sebastian drained half the glass, then flopped back, head spinning. “What happened?”

“You passed out during the ritual.” Jim returned to his chair by the bed and picked up his phone. “You’ve been out for a week.”

Sebastian groaned, trying to sit up and quickly abandoning the attempt. “Why?”

“Because I miscalculated, darling.”

“What?”

“I’m not mate-blooded. I never was.”

Oh, fuck. Sebastian had heard about the dangers of going through Aphelion without a proper mate. No wonder he’d been out cold.

“I’d been getting transfusions from an available donor. You couldn’t seem to tell the difference, so I had hoped…”

“No.”

“There was, of course, no precedent to be found on whether or not it would work. I knew there was a risk, for both of us—“

“You did this to me.”

“—but it would have been so wonderfully convenient to have mated you, so I took the risk.”

“ _Convenient._ You selfish bastard. You _did this to me_.”

The door swung open, admitting Sebastian’s housekeeper, Mrs. Kaslow, with a pot of tea and some broth. Sebastian smiled weakly, genuinely fond of his staff. The two of them shut up while she was in the room, allowing her to fuss over Sebastian and feed him bits of toast soaked in broth.

“Let him sleep,” she scolded, when she picked up her tray, satisfied with the sustenance she had gotten into Sebastian. 

He opened his mouth to object, but his eyes closed, and he was gone.

—

Jim was still there when he awoke. He didn’t expect that. Jim always pitched a fit when he had to reschedule plans for any reason. The amount of rescheduling that he would need to stay for over a week was staggering. 

They didn’t talk. Jim and Mrs. Kaslow helped him to the bathroom and spooned soup into him, ignoring when he snarled at them.

“Why are you here?” Sebastian asked, on the fourth day he had been awake. He had three times yelled at Jim to leave, but they hadn’t otherwise talked. Sebastian spent most of his time sleeping, and didn’t _want_ to talk to him.

“Wouldn’t be much of a doting boyfriend if I left your bedside while you were ailing,” Jim responded, not looking up from his phone.

“Consider yourself dumped.”

Jim ignored that, continuing as though Sebastian hadn’t spoken. “For those few who actually need to know, I’ve put out the story that I’m only weakly mate-blooded, and that we bonded but are dealing with complications.”

“Complications,” Sebastian repeated, flatly. “I will kill you.”

Jim stood and patted his hand, patronizing. “I’m going to go make a call.”

—

After a week, when Sebastian could stand unaided, they caught a plane home.

Sebastian still refused to talk to him. He locked his door and curled up in silence for hours at a time. 

It was easy enough to cut Jim out of his life. His schedule became instantly less busy. There were some few official occasions to attend—more than before, because of those convenient little deaths that had nudged him into a more influential rank—but he was otherwise left alone and allowed to sulk.

Jim gave him two weeks before he started letting himself in.

“How are you feeling, love?” Jim asked, taking a seat on the floor next to Sebastian.

“I think the headache’s permanent,” Sebastian said, staring into space. After a long pause, his eyes flicked over to Jim, angry. “The betrayal still burns.”

Grabbing Jim by the front of his shirt, Sebastian dragged him to the door and threw him out.

Jim let himself back in the next day. “How about a nice murder, darling? That always cheers you up.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“I have my eye on the Duke of Eton. You’re poised to directly inherit that one. Would you like a dukedom, precious?”

Sebastian stared straight ahead. “I’d like Jim Moriarty’s head on a plate.”

—

“Morning, tiger!” Jim called, inviting himself in to Sebastian’s room at the palace. “Brought you a neat little trick today.”

He tossed over a prescription bottle. Sebastian caught it and checked the label, intrigued enough to temporarily quit his sulking. “Erin Murray?”

“She’s a nobody. But a nobody who happens to be somebody’s favorite fucktoy. The poison is a little blend that I put together. Once it hits the bloodstream, it’s convulsions and death in under a minute. The trick is in the coating.”

Sebastian gave the little bottle a shake, and looked up, curious.

“It takes forty minutes for the coating to dissolve, which is just the window of time I need from when our dear Erin habitually takes her pills to when she gets fucked. And won’t the medical examiners puzzle over that little delay.”

Dropping down to straddle Sebastian’s lap, Jim tipped his chin up. “Cheer up, darling. We’ll get you a nice murder, a dukedom, and a new mate. You know I’d give you the world. Give me about five years, and I will.”

Sebastian’s expression didn’t change, but his arms wrapped around Jim’s waist and stayed there.

—

“Oh, look at that. They found the pills.”

Jim handed over the bowl of microwave popcorn he had just made and joined Sebastian on the couch. Getting regular updates on his phone from the mole he had planted in the homicide division, Jim got to enjoy the murder investigation of his handiwork almost as if he was there. “Sherlock is such a pleasure to watch puzzle something out. Like a little rat in a maze.”

“Sherlock?” Sebastian’s brow furrowed. Five minutes ago, Jim had been going on about Sebastian’s new dukedom and what fun it would be, lavishing praise and attention on him. Except that now he’d gotten distracted on his most obsessive topic: Sherlock.

“Yes, he’s on the case. No surprise there. Clever little rat, he’s figured out that our killings are all related. But he can’t figure out how. And don’t worry, darling, he won’t. It’s such a pity that I’ll have to get rid of him.”

“Do,” Sebastian suggested.

“Oh, darling. All in good time. I’m having fun.”

“I noticed that.” Setting aside the bowl of popcorn, Sebastian snarled and grabbed Jim by the throat. “And I’m starting to get fed up with how often I hear his name.”

“He’s on our case, darling,” Jim cooed. “I have to keep tabs on him.”

“Yes, but it’s not just that, is it?” Sebastian leaned in, growling. “He’s offspring. And as clever as you are. You’re not sure if you want more to fuck him or to be him.”

Jim pretended to give that serious thought, making an exaggerated ‘hmmm’ face, which dissolved into a sadistic smirk. “Jealous, pet?”

“Getting a little tired of you using me.”

“I use everyone, darling. You just happen to be my favorite.”

“I don’t believe you anymore.”

—

Sebastian wandered the streets of London. He stayed in hotels by night, and wandered by day. If he didn’t stay put, Jim wouldn’t be able to find him.

He was supposed to be attending a ceremony to add ‘duke’ to his list of titles. It was just the nudge Jim needed that tipped Sebastian from ignorable to influential. And he was just a pawn. 

Stupid, slow, ordinary Sebastian. Fawning over Jim while Jim used him to make puzzles for Sherlock.

_What did you expect, Sebastian, that the one person you’ve ever found interesting would find you loveable? Why would he bother, when it’s so easy to tell you what you want to hear?_

All Jim really wanted was Sherlock, who was all cozy and domestic with his little mate. Sherlock adored that mate. Some army doctor named John Watson.

And just like that, Sebastian had an idea.

\--

“John! We have a case!”

Sherlock swooped into the room, snatching up coat and scarf on his way through. “Quickly, John! A new murder royale from our serial killer!”

Scrambling to his feet and grabbing his coat, John followed him. “Our serial killer? What serial killer is this?”

“The royal murders, John. You remember the case with the Countess of Aberthy?”

“Well, yes, but—“

“And the Earl Confort?”

“Those were serial killings?”

“There have been three others.” Sherlock hailed a cab, nearly bouncing with excitement. “One disguised as a suicide, one that looked like a natural death and a third that might have been an accident. Lestrade didn’t see the connection at all. But they are serial murders, John, and they are _brilliant_.”

“Right.” John slid into the cab next to him, trying to keep up with Sherlock’s enthusiasm. “How are they brilliant?”

“Because they have so little in common. Three of the murderers have been caught—“

“Hang on, three of the murderers?”

“Yes. I think that the murders have been masterminded by someone behind the scenes. In one of the cases, the murderer just happened to be at the right place and time, and stumbled into a very convenient set of circumstances. Another of them was almost certainly coached in the details of the murder that he then carried out, but he was himself killed before he could be questioned. The third might have been coached or merely nudged in the right direction, but she too is now mysteriously dead.” 

“You’re saying that someone is manipulating people into murders. Like pawns.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, John. It’s all wrong for the profile of a typical serial killer. All the signs are off. And that’s what makes it so fascinating. There have been five murders—now six—of members of royal families throughout Albion in the past six months, and they don’t fit any pattern. Every single pattern I’ve come up with will fit three or four of the murders, but not all six.”

“Perhaps one or two of them is unrelated?” John tried.

“No. They’re brilliant, John. Unusual circumstances and a subtle, ingenious hand. All six are connected, I’m sure of it. But I don’t know why. Serial killings typically increase in frequency, as the murderer needs to kill more and more often to get the same thrill. But these have been spreading further apart, if anything. It’s utterly fascinating.”

“Right. Let’s not say that in front of the victim’s families, then.”

“I doubt I’ll need to speak to the victim’s family in this case.”

“Oh?” John pursed his lips, curious. Sherlock hadn’t given him any of the details on this case yet. 

“The Duke of Eton,” Sherlock handed over his phone, which displayed a police file he’d obtained on the victim. “A minor political player, apparently of expensive tastes. Enough significance that they’ll have to cover up the circumstances of his death, but few people will miss him.” 

John’s eyebrows raised as he scrolled down through the file. Since working with Sherlock, especially on the two cases connected to this one, John had learned that there were many things about the proclivities of the royalty that they preferred to keep away from the public attention. Royal families were above the laws that governed men, which was just because the rulers themselves were _gods_. But sometimes their preferences could be downright vile to the tastes of ordinary humans. Humans raped and murdered their own kind, but somehow it was additionally unsettling when it was a royal doing the raping and murdering of humankind.

The cab took them to the palace itself, where they were shuffled through an array of security checks before being allowed in to the crime scene itself. 

John stopped in the doorway, staring at the tableau in utter shock. There were two corpses, decesased in the act of sexual congress. 

The room itself was opulent and spacious, and the couple was at the exact center. The male was evidently royalty, although his nature seemed more insectoid than Sherlock’s slick, squid-like tentacles, and he had died of apparent asphyxiation. A rope around his neck trailed up to a ring set into the ceiling, and then over to a lever set just out of either of their reach. He had the woman—a human—bent over a couch, facing toward the lever. One of her hands was outstretched toward it. Her cause of death was unclear.

“Erotic asphyxiation,” Sherlock said, circling the pair of corpses in absolute fascination. “She would have had to take two steps away from him in order to pull the lever that would have saved his life, and he was counting on her making it there in time. It’s a complicated set-up, and one that’s been used before. A favorite fetish of his, I think. But she never made it to the lever. Poisoned. And there’s the murder. He was the target. She was merely a tool.”

Greg walked up, and Sherlock’s attention immediately snapped over to him. “The woman. Who is she?”

“His servant,” Greg said, frowning at their unusual crime scene. “We’ve spoken to some of the other servants, and, uh, it seems this was a favorite game of the Duke’s. He enjoyed having sex with her in this manner, in which it was her obligation to pull the lever to release him once he had… finished.”

“She was not a willing participant,” Sherlock informed him. “It was all part of the game. If she failed to reach the lever, then a man she hated would die, but she would become a murderer and most likely be punished as such. It was a continual test of her moral strength against her hatred for him.”

“That’s horrible,” Greg grimaced, looking physically ill. 

“So the murderer poisoned her, and by extension, killed him. How? What poison could they have used that would kill her swiftly enough to prevent her getting to the lever, but that neither one would notice something amiss in whatever time between her ingesting the poison and however long it took them to get into this position?”

Everyone looked to Sherlock, expecting an answer. He didn’t have one.

“Have you identified the poison?” Sherlock asked the Detective Inspector.

“They’ve taken samples, but the lab has nothing yet. It’ll have to come out in the autopsy.” 

“I want to hear the minute you find out. John! We’re leaving,” Sherlock said, already headed out of the room. “Brilliant! But why him? Who wanted him dead, and what’s his connection to the others?”

Sherlock stopped in the hallway, puzzled, and turned around. “John? _John_.”

He was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

John was gone. Missing. Vanished.

He had been right there in the room with them. But while Sherlock’s attention was focused on the murder, John had left without a word. 

Kidnapped? Coerced? Left of his own volition? A combination thereof?

It was logical enough that he might have chosen to leave the crime scene. Rape by royalty contained two of John’s triggers. The murder might have made him uncomfortable.

Except that not one of the guards on the many checkpoints reported seeing him leave. That suggested an inside job. Someone who knew his or her way around the palace had taken John, or at least inexplicably helped him to leave.

He had few enough clues on John’s whereabouts. But since John had been taken from the crime scene, that might be a clue in itself. If Sherlock could figure out who was behind the royal murders and why, he might find his way to John.

And meanwhile, his deadline was coming up on the Gautráðr case. That case left no easy trail to follow, no clear motive, but he’d tracked down enough about when and where the manuscript could be used to have a theory. He had one day before a certain comet passed by the earth, and knew the nearest and most likely location for the relevant rituals. So it was just a matter of wandering around a sleepy little fishing village until he found the cult of Wodanaz, or whoever was behind it.

Lindisfarne was the perfect spot for a restorationist cult. It was quiet and obscure. Strangers stuck out as though they were wearing neon, and it still had the nickname _the Holy Island_ because it had once held such significance. 

Ancient pagans had called it holy, from the earliest archaeological records. Their sites were built over by christians, which were invaded by vikings, reclaimed by the christians, and then reduced to nothing but a fishing village once the Great Old Ones came to bring enlightenment.

As soon as Sherlock arrived, he found himself watched. The curious eyes of the locals were one thing, but this scrutiny was much too pointed. Sherlock made a show of being a friendly tourist, and headed off in the direction of the priory ruins which should be the crux of any heretical activity. It was little surprise when he was intercepted en route by a polite and well-dressed young lady who walked straight up to him. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Holmes?”

He scanned her. Former government official, now privately employed. Combat training. In a non-exclusive homosexual relationship, mostly happy but often conflicted. High-ranking in her employ—oh, that relationship was with her boss, interesting—and yet still prone to being sent on errands to fetch nosy detectives.

Sherlock grinned at her. “The same, yes. I believe I have some business with your mistress.”

“Yes. This way, please.” Giving him a coy smile, she led the way in the opposite direction, toward Lindisfarne castle.

The castle was an old ruin of a fortress, frequently expanded with eccentric additions by former owners. Sherlock had looked up excerpts from its colorful history, but it was hard to be certain from the limited data how much that history was intertwined with the Gautráðr and similar artifacts. Recent refurbishment had equipped at least central parts of the castle with modern amenities, but it was still a rambly old disaster of a domicile. 

Resident staff of three, Sherlock noted. Temporary inhabitants, five. Rather exclusive, for a restorationist cult with such high connections. Either the cult was tiny, or only a few of them had been invited to the ritual in question. Also possible that some members were permanent residents of the little village.

His guide led him to a neat little sitting room, where a woman in white sat waiting with a tray laid for tea.

“Mr. Holmes.” She rose to greet him with a smile. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Irene Adler. Traitor to the crown, of the human liberation movement. Such an honor to have _royalty_ under my roof.”

“Is it?” Sherlock countered, his doubt about the ‘honor’ evident in his tone. “I’m very curious about the Maugham murder, Miss Adler. Perhaps you might indulge me by explaining what happened.”

He scanned her, but found his deductions came up more questions than answers. She was human, of expensive tastes if not expensive breeding. Restorationist, such as wanted to bring down the royal families and restore the world to human control. But of what background? What education? What weaknesses? He couldn’t tell.

“Ah.” She frowned, a trace of regret in her expression, but it might have been counterfeit. “That was unfortunate. I had truly hoped that Hugo would accept my rather generous offer to purchase the manuscript. Yes, Mr. Holmes. I confess that I killed him. I needed that manuscript.”

“The Gautráðr. Of such acclaimed power.” 

“Yes. Would you like to see it?” Irene smiled, beckoning him into a little side room and unlocking a cupboard. The manuscript—or an impressive copy—lay within. It was beautifully illuminated, and written in Old English. 

“As I trust you know, many of the old cults converted when the gods returned. They hid out within the factions of the church. The author of the Gautráðr was one such. While he ought to have been illuminating the praises of Gloriana, he instead chose to record the ancient rituals of the Aesir.  
“The excerpt that interests me in particular is a passage regarding the war between the Aesir and the Jotunn. Are you familiar with the legend?”

“I am not.” Sherlock observed her closely, mystified at her helpful and informative demeanor.

“The Jotunn were giants of ice, sea and fire. The Aesir fought them and drove them away. It’s interesting, the descriptions of the Jotunn bear striking similarities to the Old Ones who rule our world. And the power of the Gautráðr seems certain enough in some aspects, although I have not personally tested them. I cannot help but wonder, might we call forth heroes to free humanity, as our ancestors did once before?”

“That’s very optimistic of you,” Sherlock’s tone was scathing. “If it worked, it seems more likely you might simply exchange one set of overlords for another.”

“It’s entirely possible, yes. So you advise we should stick with the devil we know? Where’s your spirit of adventure, Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock’s head tilted at the question, intrigued despite himself.

“I’ve done some research on you, Mr. Holmes. An unfortunate situation you find yourself in, as I understand. Your beloved is driven away by the very thing you need most.” Irene shut and locked the cupboard, returning to the parlour. “I know something interesting about that.”

Trailing her, Sherlock allowed himself to be directed to a chair and served tea. His curiosity quickly overwhelmed his knowledge that normal people would possess a sense of decorum which looked poorly on taking tea with murderers. But Sherlock had no such sense of decorum. He didn’t solve crimes for the sake of morality, or bettering society. He just wanted something intriguing to do. And right now he was very intrigued.

“The mate bond isn’t a need among your kind, Sherlock, it’s an addiction. Humans and royals survive just fine without each other, and have done so. One of the most interesting passages in the Gautráðr speaks of _severing the link_ between the races. I believe it refers to the mate bond. This isn’t the first time we’ve been through this little cycle. Aesir, humans, royals and back again, tumbling over each other to rule the planet. I’d be delighted to show you the passage, and supporting texts that strengthen my argument. You are welcome to draw your own conclusions.  
“If I am right, you could shed your _need_ for a mate. The two of you would be free to do as you like without the stress of that addiction between you. And, if nothing else, Mr. Holmes, aren’t you curious about what would happen if we changed the world?”

He was. Absolutely fascinated. And if Irene was telling the truth, he could fix John in one simple action. The mate bond would dissolve, and they could go back to what they had before. Whatever his nature, Sherlock had no true loyalty to Albion or the Queen. He simply helped maintain the status quo because there were no other options. Sherlock had no interest in struggling against the inevitable.

But what if one single, well-timed ritual could change the world? What would that new world be like?

_Oh, how very interesting._

Irene smiled. “As I believe you already know, Mr. Holmes, you have one day to make your decision. I’ve taken the liberty of making a reservation for you at the village inn. Do enjoy your stay in Lindisfarne.”

On his way out of the castle, Sherlock walked by a dark-haired little man sitting waiting in the entry hall. He looked twice, their eyes meeting for a moment, and memorized the face. The stranger smiled very slightly at him, but Sherlock couldn’t read anything useful off of him.

Someone else had come to speak to Irene about her recent acquisition.

—

Lestrade was waiting for him at the inn.

Surprised and puzzled to see him, Sherlock stopped short in the doorway, then frowned. “Lestrade. Did my brother send you to be my keeper?”

“Your brother pointed me in the right direction to find you and mentioned that you’d gone off to investigate the Maugham case, yes. I came because I had questions of my own. And it’s my job to worry about you, especially with John gone.”

“Yes, of course,” Sherlock replied, icy. He didn’t want or need Lestrade worrying over him. “What would I do without my surrogate?”

Scowling at the jab, Lestrade folded his arms. “Have you got any leads on where he’s gone?”

“No. If I had, I wouldn’t be here.”

“And what _are_ we doing here? Have you found the murderer?”

“In the Maugham case, yes. I just had a lovely chat with her over tea.”

Lestrade opened his mouth and then shut it again, his expression making clear that he was getting a Sherlock-induced migraine. “I honestly can’t tell whether you’re joking.”

“She’s a restorationist, you see. Such _fun._ Tell me, Detective Inspector, what are your thoughts on restorationists? On second thought, best to keep it to yourself. I suspect most of the town is involved in the restorationist sect in question.”

“Please just tell me I can arrest someone.”

“Not yet. I have questions that still need to be answered before I let you do anything rash.”

“Like my job?”

“Yes.” Sherlock sat down in one of the chairs set neatly by the inn fireplace, scowling and trying to sort out his three disparate cases. As long as Lestrade was going to be here, he could listen while Sherlock talked out his thoughts—although he really preferred either John or his mantlepiece skull. “No clue as to who took John. His cell phone is turned off and his accounts are untouched. If he went of his own volition, he’s living off of whatever he had in his pockets at the time, but he never carries much cash, and he hasn’t gone to friends or family. None of Mycroft’s minions have spotted him on any of Mycroft’s networks. He seems to have completely vanished. But if he was taken, it must be to get at me. He has no significant value otherwise. And he was taken from the palace, so it’s possible that the kidnapping was related to the killings. But if taking John was meant to send me a message, why haven’t I been contacted with threats or terms?” 

Tapping steepled hands against his chin, Sherlock thought. “I have to solve the royalty case, Lestrade. I have to find the pattern. The victims are all from different levels of power. There’s no connection between them other than their blood. It almost seems random. Almost. But this case doesn’t have the earmarks of a serial killing. There’s not enough similarity for the targets he chooses. And it doesn’t fit the usual behavioral patterns of a killer. They’re too intentional. There’s some goal to the killings.” 

“Well, who benefits?” Lestrade asked, in a feeble effort to be helpful.

“Twenty-three different people, variously. Taking into account those who benefit from at least three of the murders, six people. But if it’s for the benefit of anyone of them, then there are at least two or three murders that were done entirely at random, which—“ He stopped suddenly, head tilted, as a connection fell into place.

“Quiet,” Sherlock ordered, mind spinning as he did calculations.

Lestrade waited.

“Sebastian Moran.” Face smoothing with confidence at his answer, Sherlock looked up. “The murders benefit Sebastian Moran.”

“Who?”

“Minor Irish royalty. He ranks barely highly enough to have a suite in Buckingham palace. I was looking at the case all wrong. Six suspects. I was looking for the pattern that connected the murders that did benefit each of them. I should have been looking for the pattern in the murders that _didn’t_. The pieces that don’t fit for the others are truly random. But the two murders that don’t benefit Sebastian Moran are both perfectly chosen to balance out the other four. They’re the two most perfect targets to make the other six look random and unrelated. Too perfect.

“Call your people, Lestrade. Send them to collect Sebastian Moran. If he’s not your mastermind, he’ll lead you straight to the man who is.”

\--

He’d been kidnapped. 

It was bad enough when Mycroft kidnapped him. John found it really tiresome that the man couldn’t just pick up a phone. He always had to send a car to kidnap John.

But this time he’d been kidnapped by a six foot three wall of scowling muscle, who hadn’t yet seen fit to talk to him. 

He was a well-connected wall of muscle, John gave him that. John had just been trying to step away from the murder scene for a moment, to get some air, and he’d found himself shuttled off through the palace by a series of helpful guards and servants. By the time he realized that he was being led away toward some purpose, he was already very firmly in their clutches, and had only the choice of whether to go willingly or be bound and gagged.

They’d shipped him over to Ireland, of all places, and delivered him to a charming little rural castle, where he was left more or less to his own devices. He was always guarded, usually by the wall of muscle who seemed to be the one giving the orders. That one was either in charge, or someone’s second in command. John would have guessed the latter.

“Are you going to talk to me today?” John asked, when the two of them were left alone for breakfast.

His gaoler smirked at him. “I might.”

“Alright.” John drew himself up and puffed his chest in a manner that meant business. “Who’s in charge here?”

“I am.”

“And do you answer to someone who is not here?”

“No.” The muscle looked amused at the inquiry, and seemed to have decided to play along. “There are people who are higher-ranking than I am, but I answer to none of them directly. And the man I intended to mate sometimes enjoys bossing me around, when we’re playing our usual game of ‘which one of us is scarier’ to decide who’s in charge for the day.”

“Intended to mate?” John swallowed his tea too quickly and choked. “You’re royalty.”

“Yes.” He smirked again. “Want to see?”

“No. Thank you, but no.” Frowning, John thought over which of his questions was the highest priority. His captor was answering questions at the moment, but his helpful streak might end at any time. “Why did you kidnap me?”

“I was angry.” A shrug. “I still am. And once I’m feeling a bit better, I’m going to need a mate.”

John went red. “I’ve got one, thanks.”

“I know. I’m angry at yours. And mine. Not that I have one.” 

He’d intended to mate someone, and it hadn’t worked out. Well. John understood how these things could get a little complicated. “What happened?” he asked, lips firming in patient bemusement once he realized that he’d just offered himself as therapist to his tentacled captor. 

The offspring glanced over at him, balancing amusement and suspicion and deciding whether John really wanted or needed to know. “He wasn’t mate-blooded. He tricked me into thinking he was. Surprise, surprise, it didn’t work out.”

“And I’m connected to this, how?”

“Mine is obsessed with yours. I’m jealous.”

John almost told him that made no sense, but decided the wiser course of action was _not_ to provoke the big, scary offspring.

Sighing, his captor rubbed at his face, and his shoulders sagged. He seemed also to have come to the conclusion that he made no sense. As a form of truce, he offered his hand across the table. “Sebastian Moran, of the Ó Móráin branch of the Irish royal family. Useless younger son and known wastrel.”

John reciprocated. “Captain John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers.”

Sebastian made an impressed snort at the exchange of titles. “Yours are better than mine.”

“Better?” John’s brow furrowed in confusion. Ranking royalty always had a stack of titles. Sebastian should be no exception.

“Earned.”

“Ah.” Meeting his eyes, John saw behind the bored and cruel facade, to a strong and clever man who wanted something to live for, something to care about, and a cause to dedicate himself to. He could sympathize with that. He knew what it was like to be adrift in the world, looking for a purpose. Granted, he hadn’t ever gone about kidnapping people and threatening to rape them, but he also hadn’t ever been a bored and useless younger prince, simultaneously spoiled and neglected. 

“Still going to mate you, though.” Sebastian looked away, turning his attention to his toast.

“Why?”

“Why forcefully mate someone, or why you specifically?”

“Both. You really haven’t answered the latter.”

Sebastian shrugged. “Because I can. Because I need it, and it’ll help me heal faster. And because I want to hurt yours and mine.”

“You mentioned that, yeah. What did they do?”

Ignoring the question, Sebastian chomped thoughtfully at his toast. “What does it feel like, for you? The mate bond.”

“Not sure. I’ve had this constant tug of want and guilt in me ever since… aphelion. And gods, I hate that word now. I honestly can’t tell how much of what I feel is my own emotion and how much is the bond forcing me toward Sherlock. It makes me feel a little sick.”

Sebastian looked back, studying him with what looked like sympathy and a touch of guilt. “You’re not—I thought the two of you were blissful or something.”

“ _Blissful?_ Stars align, no. _Blissful_ is not anything like what we are. My best friend raped me, and now he gets shaking fits like he’s in withdrawal that I won’t let him do it again.”

“Tough luck, being mate-blooded.”

“Yeah, well. Tough luck with the whole fuck or die gig you lot get.”

Sebastian grunted, shrugging agreement with that. Digging in his pocket, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through it, considering something. “What if we could break it?”

“Break it?”

Setting the phone down on the table between them, Sebastian nudged it over. The screen showed recent incoming texts.

_I can fix this, darling. I can fix you. -M_

_You should come see the fireworks. Lindisfarne island. Tomorrow. -M_

_I found something very interesting. You should come. Say you will. -M_

_I know you took Sherlock’s little plaything. Bring him along. Sherlock’s here. -M_

_I’m going to be very displeased if I go to all of this trouble for you and you don’t show up. -M_

Sebastian hadn’t replied to any of them.

“What does he mean, he can fix this?” John asked, also very much wondering who _M_ was. 

“I don’t know. I’m kind of curious. He means fixing how bad things went after aphelion. Fixing me. I don’t know.”

“We should go.”

Sebastian grinned over at him. “You’re only saying that so that I won’t mate you.”

John couldn’t help but laugh at the weirdness of the situation and the odd, wry acceptance between them. They were both in circumstances they didn’t like that were out of their control. He half suspected that the reason Sebastian wouldn’t give him a straight answer about why he’d been kidnapped was because what Sebastian really wanted was just to be able to talk to someone who was as much out of his depth in their situation. “I’m not _only_ saying it for that. Look, I don’t know who yours is, but I know that Sherlock’s there. We’ve got to play the hand we’ve been dealt.”

“We don’t have any idea what’s at Lindisfarne.”

“You want to sit here drinking tea while our partners are causing some incredible amount of trouble without us?”

“Lindisfarne.” Sebastian grinned and offered his hand. “Truce?”

“For now.” John nodded, taking his hand. “Truce.”


	13. Chapter 13

By the way, Lindisfarne is a real place and almost everything in the story about it (aside from the summoning bits and the coming of the Great Old Ones, obviously) is historically accurate to the best of my ability. Here’s a picture of the priory, where the events of this chapter will be going down:  
http://www.edwud.com/photos/archway_at_lindisfarne_priory.jpg

\--

The sky roiled in the most beautifully unnatural colors of purple and red, like a great vivid bruise on the skin of the universe as it flickered out lightning in all directions.

Irene strolled alone through the soft grass of the ruined priory, book in hand, lighting the candles that she had brought and setting them into place. Each one trembled once in the sharp winds, and then burned straight and bright, unaffected by the storm.

Sherlock came second, sharply dressed in a suit, with his glamour neatly in place. 

“Mr. Holmes. You came.” Irene smiled like a cat, candle flame and lightning sending odd shadows skittering across her face.

“You were right,” he said. “I’m curious.”

He left it at that, and Irene returned to lighting her candles.

Jim came third. He strolled straight in, hands in pockets, grinning like he owned the place. “Sherlock! What a pleasure. Are you joining us tonight? Never thought you’d be in for initiating worldwide upheaval. Well-behaved and overlooked little royal that you are.”

Puzzled, Sherlock peered at him. “Who are you?”

“Jim Moriarty. I believe you’re a _fan_ of my work. You’ve been following it for quite some time. Did you like the little present I left behind at Erin Murray’s pharmacy?”

“You’re Sebastian’s mastermind.” Sherlock raised his eyebrows, impressed.

“ _Oh_. I didn’t realize you’d sussed out my dear Sebastian’s identity. Clever.”

“Boys,” Irene interrupted. “Do save any quarrels you have for after the ritual, won’t you?”

“Yes, marm,” Jim drawled, smirking and meandering around to inspect her work.

“I don’t believe you’ve told us what this ritual involves, Miss Adler.”

Irene tossed a smile over her shoulder at Sherlock. “Nor do I intend to. Especially not you, Mr. Holmes. I’ve spent a very long time putting everything into place. Wouldn’t do for you to change your mind at the last minute. If anything does go wrong, I prefer you not have the knowledge to prevent future attempts.”

“Hm,” Sherlock replied, a bit indignant at being kept out of the loop, especially because of how Jim grinned about it. 

“ _Sherlock_.”

Annoyed at having been ditched, Greg stumbled through the priory ruins, scowling around at the three of them. “What’s all this?”

“One of yours, Sherlock?” Jim asked.

“Detective Inspector Lestrade,” Sherlock answered. “Go home, Lestrade. Stay out of this.”

“What exactly am I staying out of? If you’ll excuse me saying, this looks a bit like treason, Sherlock.”

“We’re on a deadline, Sherlock,” Irene reminded him. 

Sherlock walked over to Greg, offering his hand. He took it. “I’m very sorry about this, Detective Inspector.” 

He dropped the glamour on the spot, tentacles whipping out and tangling around Greg’s limbs, restraining him on the spot.

“Sherlock.” Greg met his eyes, beseeching. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock repeated, finding the handcuffs that Greg carried on him, and swiftly binding his hands behind his back. 

“Sherlock, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.” 

“No time for that,” Sherlock said, pushing him down to his knees. “Stay,” he ordered.

Realizing that he was outnumbered and overpowered, and that Sherlock’s new friends would probably prefer him unconscious anyway, Greg took the opportunity Sherlock was offering—to stay alive and conscious, and watch. He stayed.

“Assure me that whatever you’re doing isn’t going to involve human sacrifice,” Greg sighed, figuring that he could resign himself on those terms.

Sherlock looked to Irene. She shook her head.

“No human sacrifice,” Sherlock confirmed for him.

“Grand. I feel better already.”

The four of them waited around in silence as the sky darkened and Irene lit her candles. 

“Not long now,” Irene said, dusting off a flat, half-buried stone that had once been part of an altar. She knelt by it, setting a wooden bowl upon the surface.

“Do hurry, Sebastian,” Jim grumbled, checking his phone again, for messages that weren’t there.

“Sherlock!” John showed up at the far end of the priory ruins and broke into a run, bolting to Sherlock’s side. “Sherlock.” He pulled up short just a step away from his mate, looking up at him.

“John.” Sherlock smiled gratefully, not reaching out to touch him in case that was unwelcome. They stared at each other for a moment, wanting to hug but not quite sure if they could.

“What’s going on? Who are these people?” John frowned around at their little circle, confused and concerned. “Greg! What--” 

Sebastian approached more warily, nodding to Jim in greeting. “You have such weird hobbies, lover.”

“What, heresy?” Jim greeted him with a kiss. “I like heresy. Keeps everything exciting.”

Sebastian kept his hold on him. “I’m going to need to know what’s going on, Jim. John, too. Someone start explaining.”

“We have the opportunity tonight to perform a ritual,” Sherlock explained, glancing over to Irene for confirmation, expecting that she would interrupt if he needed. “To summon into this world Elder gods, in opposition to the rulers of our world. Miss Adler here is a restorationist, of the most resourceful variety.”

“Sherlock,” John breathed. “That’s not just heresy. That’s treason.” 

“I agree. And a betrayal of my own blood. Half of it, at any rate. But I believe that Miss Adler is correct in her belief that this has happened before. The Aesir have fought the Jotunn before, and will again.” 

“So why?” Sebastian demanded. “Why do this?”

“Because one of the side effects is to break the mate bond,” Jim said. “And to absolve those of royal blood of their need for that bond.”

John stared. “Is that true?”

“Yes.” Sherlock met his eyes, studying John’s face for his reactions. “At least in theory. It would break the bond between us. Things would go back to the way they were. You’d be free. We could be just… friends.”

“And for _that_ you’d risk destroying the world?”

Sherlock was puzzled, surprised that John so vehemently disapproved. “If it made you happy, yes.”

“It doesn’t.” John took his hands, giving Sherlock a light shake. “You make me happy, Sherlock. I’d rather be your mate, with all the craziness, than take a risk like this. I don’t mind the bond. We’re healing. We’re going to be okay, Sherlock. We’ll be fine. Just you and me.”

Sherlock gazed into his eyes, making his decision. He was dangerously curious about what would happen, and whether the ritual would work—but his true priorities revolved around John.

“Miss Adler,” Sherlock said. “I’m going to need you to refrain from continuing the ritual.”

Irene paused, knife in hand and held over the bowl.

“How about it, Bastian?” Jim asked, grinning wildly. “Want to end the world?”

“By bringing in the ancient enemies of my people? Not sure. Might’ve appreciated some time to think that one over.”

Sherlock made the decision for all of them, by overturning the thin wooden bowl and bringing his foot down on it. It cracked in two.

Lightning split the sky, blasting down to the stone, just inches away from Sherlock. 

Everything happened at once.

“Sherlock!”

“Sherlock, I think we should _go_.”

Irene turned to flee, only to find Jim in front of her. “Knife,” he said, holding out his hand.

She tossed the knife into the grass for him to pick it up, and took the opportunity to disappear.

Temporarily stunned by the near-miss with the lightning, Sherlock scanned the sky for signs that it was too late, and that Irene’s mysterious ritual had already been set into motion, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Sherlock!” 

The note of panic in John’s voice made Sherlock spin, only to see a furious Jim advancing on John with the knife. Sherlock launched himself at Jim, but Sebastian got there first, grabbing Jim and hauling him backwards. 

“Stop it,” Sebastian snarled. “I need him. I need a mate, and I like him.”

“We’ll get you someone else,” Jim snapped. “This one just spoiled my nice plans. I wanted to see the world burn, Sebastian.”

Sebastian laughed and shook his head. “So do I. And we will. You’ll burn the world for me. But right now,” he turned Jim, pointing him at Sherlock instead of John, “it’s Sherlock I want dead. He ruined your plans. He always ruins your damn plans. And I don’t need him. I need John.”

“No!” John yelled, making a grab for Sebastian.

“ _Wait!_ ” Greg yelled, and everyone was so surprised to remember that he was still here that they did.

Jim laughed, startled. “Something you’d like to say?”

“Take me,” Greg said, getting to his feet, despite the handcuffs throwing off his balance. “He needs a mate, you lot need to stop fighting, and I need to be mated.”

“No,” Jim sneered.

Shaking off John, Sebastian grabbed Jim with one hand over his mouth and one arm around his waist. “Shh,” he said, hugging Jim from behind. “I want to hear what he has to say.” 

“Take me. The mating ritual requires consent. You’ll never get that from John. But I’ll make you a deal.”

“They’re murderers, Lestrade,” Sherlock interrupted. “Jim here is the mastermind behind our serial killings.”

Greg sighed. “Gods, Sherlock, the things you get me into.”

“What’s the deal, Inspector Lestrade?” Sebastian asked.

Greg looked over the lot of them, trying to decide how to keep them from killing each other. “Leave Albion,” he said. “Leave your plans, stop the killings, and never again threaten the peace of this country. I know I’m allowed to set terms, as part of the courtship. Those are my terms, and they apply to you both. No more murders. Leave Albion in peace. And I’ll go with you, and let you mate me.”

Sebastian thought about it, resting his head against Jim’s and releasing his mouth. “Will you let me?”

Jim sighed, taking Sebastian’s hand. “Well, you’ve got to have someone, darling. The Detective Inspector looks like he would be fun.”

“Who’s got the keys to his handcuffs?” Sebastian asked, scowling over at John and Sherlock.

Sherlock held up the key. “Lestrade. You’re certain about this?”

Greg nodded. “I need a new life. These two need someone to keep them in line. Why not? Sounds like a challenge.”

Jim laughed. “Oh, Detective Inspector. We’re going to have fun with you.”

“Take care of yourself.” Worried, John took Sherlock’s hand, holding it tightly as he watched the other three. “And thank you. For all you did for us both.”

“Don’t mention it,” Greg said, smiling over at them as Sebastian dropped his arm around his shoulders, sniffing at his new mate.

“Good,” Sebastian decided, nipping at Greg’s ear.

“Behave, tiger,” Jim purred. “We have an audience.” 

“Greg…”

Greg shook his head, relaxing into Sebastian. “I’ll be fine.” 

Sebastian tugged at him, and the three of them disappeared into the night, leaving Sherlock and John alone in the ring of candles, under the quickly clearing sky.

“I’m not sure about this,” John said, frowning, but he reached out and hugged Sherlock.

“He was. He needed a mate. There was a hole in him. Had been for years.”

“Yes, but—those two?”

“He made his choice. And at a high price, as well. Lestrade just saved England.”

“And we saved the world.” John looked up at the sky, taking a deep breath and trying to deal with everything.

Sherlock grinned. “For now.”

“No thanks to you.” John sighed, taking his hand and leading him away from the ruins. “I swear, Sherlock Holmes, I leave you alone for a few days…”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look, I drew tentacle Sherlock!  
> http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/207/6/d/aphelion_sherlock_by_stardustenigma-d58qa31.jpg

Both of them were silent on the train back to London. John sat by his side, thinking over everything he’d been through and hoping that it was all over and that the world was safe. 

He’d heard of the restorationists before, and their claims that humanity would be better off freed of the rule of the gods. Self-governed barbarians, the way they’d been before. But they had civilization now, and all manner of technology and comfort. John had to believe that was better.

He didn’t scold Sherlock further, although it scared him a little how close Sherlock had come to letting the world burn, out of curiosity and a desire to fix John. When they got back to Baker Street, he made them both a cup of tea, and Sherlock browsed through John’s blog, complaining about the mundane queries that had been brought to him to be solved, none of which were interesting.

“Go to bed, Sherlock,” John ordered.

“Not tired.”

John was tired. He’d been through so much in the past weeks. He was physically and emotionally exhausted. Reaching around Sherlock, he shut the laptop and wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist, resting his chin on his shoulder. “Bed, Sherlock,” he repeated, softer this time.

Sherlock laid an uncertain hand over John’s arm, holding it gently. After a moment, John pulled away, but he went into Sherlock’s room, and after a deep breath, laid down in Sherlock’s bed. 

Sherlock trailed after him, slow and unsure, but John was in his bed and that seemed like an invitation. Letting go of his glamour, he crawled into bed and wrapped only his human limbs around his mate. John smiled contentedly, and slept.

Every part of Sherlock was wrapped around John by morning. He lay half on top of his lover, keeping him all twisted up in a tangle of limbs. 

John awoke with a start, having to calm himself forcefully and take deep, full breaths. He breathed in Sherlock’s scent, comforting himself because this was Sherlock, and this was okay. He was safe. He had Sherlock. 

Awake and watching him from the instant John stirred, Sherlock carefully unwrapped his tentacles, one at a time, but kept his arms and legs around John.

Grateful, John smiled and kissed him, lingering in the kiss and the warmth of Sherlock’s bed. 

“Do you have any responsibilities today?” John asked, lazily running his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.

“No.” Sherlock looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Want to stay in all day and have sex?” 

Sherlock’s eyes lit with lust, licking his lips. “ _Yes._ ”

“Everyone thinks I’m still kidnapped. I suppose my responsibilities can wait another day while I’m still kidnapped,” John grinned.

“Mrs. Hudson might notice you’ve returned,” Sherlock pointed out, his tentacles wrapping back around John’s torso and legs. 

John laughed, which became giggling when he realized what Sherlock meant. Mrs. Hudson came up frequently to check on them, and he knew that Sherlock, at least, had no intention of being quiet. “Ah—yes. Yes, she might notice. She’ll be so pleased she’s finally got us domestic.”

Sherlock started giggling as well. “She won’t be happy until we’re married, you know.”

“Yes, well. I intend to enjoy living in sin for as long as I can.” Smiling contentedly, he wound his arms around Sherlock’s neck and pulled him down for a kiss. 

Sherlock shifted, laying atop him as they kissed. They had all day, but John knew that Sherlock needed this. He’d seen the beginnings of tremors in his fingers from the train home last night. And maybe John was willing to admit that he needed this, too, in his own way.

He didn’t wait long before starting on the buttons of Sherlock’s shirt, fingers lingering on the crisp fabric around each button as he popped them free. The glamour had stayed off, as was their habit now, but they had both slept in their clothes. John could feel the fabric pulling as Sherlock’s restrained tentacles squirmed beneath a wardrobe that had been designed to conceal them. 

“Alright, I’ll hurry up,” he laughed, reaching around to run his hands down Sherlock’s back and over the curve of each limb where they sprouted from his spine. The solid warmth of them felt nice under his hands, and he quickly went back to finishing his task with Sherlock’s buttons. As soon as the last one released, Sherlock tore off the shirt, tossing it across the room and rolling his shoulders, tentacles spilling out around him with pleasure at their newfound freedom. 

“You know, I used to wonder why you hated clothing so much,” John teased, massaging one of the tentacles near the base. “And why your shirts always seemed inexplicably too tight. Now I understand.”

“It’s difficult to navigate freely in the world if people recognize me as royalty,” Sherlock explained.

“I know.” John kissed him lightly, quickly unfastening the buttons on his own shirt and shedding it, along with his undershirt. Catching a glimpse of the way Sherlock licked his lips at the sight, John blushed, leaning back on his elbows and letting Sherlock look. 

Two of the tentacles wrapped almost immediately around his torso, rubbing themselves along John’s skin and leaving tingling trails of musk from the tips. 

“Fuck, Sherlock,” he murmured, shuddering ticklishly at the sensation. “How is it that you produce your own aphrodisiacs?” 

“The effect only works on humans, particularly mates, and only after they’ve ingested it,” Sherlock told him, eyes drinking in John’s form and memorizing it. He’d _never_ been allowed to look at his leisure. John could see his mind cataloguing every detail, mind whirring behind Sherlock’s eyes. Who knew how long that would take. 

With no intention of waiting, John started on Sherlock’s trousers, unfastening them quickly and pushing down them and the accompanying boxer briefs. After a moment, Sherlock caught on that there were priorities other than staring at John and helped in wiggling out of them. Between them, they got John’s trousers off, and then they both paused, staring at each other with shy nervousness.

Lying back, John parted his knees, trying not to squirm at the intense way Sherlock’s attention suddenly focused in on that. He was grateful when Sherlock looked back up, with a request for permission in his eyes. The restraint he was enforcing on himself was evident in every single muscle. 

“Just one,” John said, licking his lips and only barely containing the urge to fidget. “Please.”

Sherlock nodded, leaning forward between John’s spread legs and kissing him. Making himself relax, John groaned into the kiss, trying not to panic too much when Sherlock’s strongest tentacles wrapped around his thighs, parting his legs a little further as another of the tentacles nudged very gently against his arse, rubbing slowly around the entrance. 

Lifting his head, Sherlock met John’s eyes, keeping his gaze locked there to gauge every fleeting expression in case John needed him to stop. But the fear in John’s eyes was solidly outweighed by the trust, so Sherlock let the first few inches of it push inside. 

Gasping softly at the penetration, John shivered, glad that he was still more aroused than panicked. Another tendril wound around his cock, slicking it with Sherlock’s musk, and that quickly decided John in favor of arousal. Moaning, he lifted his hips into the warm clench of the coils wrapped around him, and got another few inches of Sherlock’s other tentacle pushed inside simultaneously. 

“Sherlock,” he groaned, hips grinding eagerly upward. “More.”

Sherlock grinned above him, and slid the tentacle deeper and deeper inside. Watching John squirm, he kept a close eye on every reaction, until the limb had gone as deep as it could, wound fully into him.

“Mine?” Sherlock asked, the slightest tremor of doubt in his voice.

“Yours,” John breathed, pulling Sherlock down and kissing him again, moaning steadily at the feeling of the tentacle slicking in and out of him. 

Purring with satisfaction when the kiss broke, Sherlock nuzzled at the side of his face. “More?”

“More,” John confirmed.

Replacing the tentacle with one of the larger counterparts, they both groaned as it pushed inside, moving quicker than the first one as it thrust deep and stroked in and out. 

“Sherlock?” John asked, smiling when Sherlock’s complete attention snapped immediately onto his face. “I love you,” he confessed.

Sherlock actually flustered, overcome with flattered happiness. “I love you,” he replied, tasting the words in his mouth and kissing John to seal it. Breaking the kiss after just a few seconds, he wound his arms tight around John, tangling all his limbs around and inside him. “I love you. I love you.”

Laughing happily, John pushed his hips upward. “I love you, too, Sherlock. Go on. Take what you need.”

Hesitating only long enough to make sure he meant it, Sherlock let his tentacles retract, then lined up and nudged his way inside. 

Full and content, John could feel his fear and panic rustling around the edges of his mind, but it wasn’t important. It wasn’t a part of this. This was him and Sherlock. Mating. Healing. Loving.

“Good?” Sherlock asked.

“Good,” John sighed, wrapping his arms and legs around Sherlock in return and keeping him close.

They made love slowly, eyes locked on each other. The last time they had been together had been a physical bond, chemical reactions mating them despite their conflicting emotions. This one was soul-deep, fitting themselves together and binding the connection.

Sherlock grabbed his hand as they came, fingers wound together tightly as they gasped and moaned in unison, feeling the bond between them set properly for the first time. 

“Sherlock,” John panted, falling back against the pillows.

Curling around him, Sherlock nuzzled against his shoulder and repeated the only words he would say for hours.

“I love you.”


	15. Chapter 15

Greg went with them willingly, although he worried about what he’d gotten himself into and all the responsibilities he’d left behind.

The three of them left Lindisfarne quickly, two of them worrying about a trap—although the man most likely to bring the police down on them had agreed to go willingly with them.

Jim drove, and got them a suite in a hotel in York. Sebastian kept an arm around Greg the entire time, as though he suspected he might disappear if Sebastian let go.

“We’ll need to take him to my place in Ireland,” Sebastian said, once they were safely in their suite. “The sooner I mate him, the better I’ll feel.”

Both humans looked surprised. “What about Aphelion?”

Sebastian looked just as surprised at their question. “I need to mate or be already mated on Aphelion. The ritual itself can be done any night of the year.” Shedding clothes quickly, Sebastian dropped his glamour.

“Are we going to play tonight, tiger?” Jim asked, openly admiring the sight of him.

“He needs my musk in him,” Sebastian said. Pushing Greg up against the nearest wall, he waited for the nod of consent that he needed. The normal courtship rituals were going to have to be modified and shortened, but consent was still essential to the mating process.

As soon as he got the nod, he pushed one of his tentacles down Greg’s throat, purring happily at the feeling.

“Isn’t that a pretty sight,” Jim said, leaning against Sebastian’s side and looking pleased when an arm and a tentacle wrapped around him. “You happy, darling?”

Sebastian slowly withdrew his limb from Greg, watching his face. “I’m paranoid that I won’t get to keep both of you. But for tonight, yes. I’m happy.”

Greg was so calmly accepting of the tentacle down his throat that Sebastian swiped a line of the musk across his face. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“No. The tingle’s a little sharper than it should be, but I’ve still got Sherlock’s musk in me. I’m acclimated.”

“Sit,” Sebastian ordered. “Explain everything. Then sex.”

The three of them sprawled variously around the room as Greg made his confessions, and Sebastian and Jim related the major details of their side of the story.

“Are you willing to do this?” Sebastian asked Jim, once they’d all fallen quiet.

“Be more specific.”

“Share. Three ways. Fair.”

Jim smiled. “Threesomes never work out, precious.”

“Try,” Sebastian suggested.

“Then yes. I’m willing. I’ll try your happily ever after in this deal you’ve made. I like the Detective Inspector. He’s clever and funny, and he used to belong to Sherlock, but now he belongs to us. I like that.”

“Sex?” Sebastian prompted.

“Sex,” Jim agreed, licking his lips. 

Both of them swiveled to look at Greg, who put his hands up. “The two of you are like a pair of predatory cats. I surrender.”

“Let me.” Crossing the room to Greg, Jim straddled his lap and began undressing him.

Still shamelessly naked and laying on the bed, Sebastian watched as the two of them began to kiss. Greg was nervous but willing, and Jim writhed very nicely, quickly convincing away Greg’s nerves. Usually very jealous, especially when it came to Jim, Sebastian was surprised to find how easily he accepted and enjoyed seeing the two of them together.

_Both mine now._

“Strip,” he ordered, and was thrilled when they both immediately prioritized that for him.

Taking full advantage of the situation, Sebastian’s tentacles reached out, tugging them over toward the bed. Jim landed on the bottom. When the kiss broke, they were both grinning over at him.

“Oh, yes, please,” Greg said.

Sebastian didn’t hesitate, one of his tentacles sliding immediately into Greg and another one into Jim. He had never tried this before and was delighted at the sensation. They were both so warm and willing and _his_. Another tentacle apiece slid down their throats, which took all of Sebastian’s concentration to keep all four moving without suffocating either of them. 

“Fuck him,” Sebastian commanded, releasing their mouths and Jim’s arse after a few minutes. 

“Go on then, Detective Inspector,” Jim taunted.

Since Sebastian had already prepared Jim for him, Lestrade just lined himself up and slid right in, groaning at the tight clench of Jim’s hole.

“Yes,” Sebastian purred, kneeling behind Greg and replacing the tentacle with his cock, earning a deep moan from both of his partners.

“More,” Jim begged.

Sebastian laughed, keeping his thrusts slow for a moment so that he could focus on pushing one of his tentacles into Jim’s arse along with Greg.

“Oh, fuck,” Greg groaned, surrounded by pleasure, and starting to rut harder into Jim. He couldn’t resist the way it felt to thrust into him alongside Sebastian’s long, slick tentacle.

“More,” Jim insisted again, so Sebastian slid a tentacle back down his throat, wonderfully overwhelmed by all these warm bodies and tight holes that belonged to him.

“Mine,” Sebastian growled, fucking his hips harder into Greg. All of them moaned and gasped in chorus.

Jim came first, arching fully off the bed and pulling Greg over the edge with him. They both collapsed onto the bed, spent, and Jim watched with sated, low-lidded eyes as Sebastian finished, filling up his new mate and pulling out.

“What do you think, Detective Inspector Lestrade?” Jim asked, playing gently with his hair as they all tried to catch their breath. “Will you stay?”

Greg linked his fingers with Sebastian’s, laying atop Jim and meeting his eyes. “I’ll stay.”


End file.
